


Where There's Smoke

by EzraTheBlue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Historical, Drug Use, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Victorian Era AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 09:33:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11987067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzraTheBlue/pseuds/EzraTheBlue
Summary: A hot London summer is punctuated by ferocious flames, and volunteer firefighter and East Indies ex-pat Geoffrey Shaw has noticed both an odd pattern and a new face in the crowd. Aaron Chisholm seems friendly enough, but questions hang heavy in the humid air. Is there more to this burning season than meets the eye, or is something unspeakable lurking under high society’s shining surface?Written for the 2017 Saiyuki Bang! Challenge





	Where There's Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to LePetitErik for beta reading, and to Illuminahsti for the lovely art! Finally, my gracious thanks to the mods of FYeahSaiyuki on Tumblr for running the Bang! Exchange. I've had wonderful fun writing this piece, and I hope you all enjoy!

**Where There's Smoke**

 Bells clanged like a church was panicking. Someone howled through the streets, "Fire! Fire on Fleet Street!" Jeff threw himself from his bed, attuned to the clamor like a dog trained on the dinner bell, and hurried into his canvas pants and suspenders. On a street as closely packed as Fleet, a fire could spread quicker than rumor, so he had no time to waste.

David was already shouting up the stairs, "Come on, come on!" Jeff hardly had time to throw his jacket on -- emblazoned with the badge of Her Majesty's Metropolitan Fire Department -- before running and joining his brother at the door, and the pair ran out together, the leather soles of their heavy boots slapping the stone-paved road with each step. “Pick up the pace,” David groused, “the ale's made you sluggish!” Jeff rolled his eyes and ignored him, but lifted his knees a little higher as they ran.

The July night sky, blacker than tar, was stained crimson and orange as the blaze roared higher, frightening off every twinkling star like fairies fleeing chains, the night air made thicker with smoke. As Jeff and David closed in, the sounds of cracking wood and shattering glass punctuated the screams of the nearby residents.

"Is Keith at the station?" Jeff had to shout to be heard, and David half-turned to answer.

"He is, and if I know him, chances are he'll beat us there with the engine!"

The summer had been unusually dry, with no rain for days despite the thick fog off the river, but with things as hot and arid as they'd been, there was a high urgency for any flame, and the Fire Department was ready at the first bell. The blaze was of a warehouse, one mercifully separated by the buildings nearest it by narrow alleys, but too narrow. Keith and a few other fellows from the station were already there and hooking the steam engine up to the water pump, others running for buckets. There were a few hails to "the brothers Shaw!" but most everyone was focused on the task at hand:

"There's no savin' the building." Jeff knew at a look. "But them places next door, they're untouched yet." From his spot beside the engine, Keith shouted commands:

"Shaw, Shaw, take the hose around the west side! Westmore, Locke, get a bucket brigade going on the east!" Keith gave their steam engine a kick, and the motor roared to life and began to pump water into the hose. Choreographed like dancers, Jeff took the front of the hose and let David, with his shoulders like a yoke and arms like oxen, haul up the back, and they ran for the west side of the building. Jeff rooted his feet to the street, heels dug in tight, and released the latch on the hose. Water gushed out, blasting from the nozzle, and Jeff aimed the stream at the roof first, soaking down the plaster and the wooden beams to soak it from the top.

"It's burning hotter at the bottom!" David's scream was a whisper behind the roar of the blaze, but Jeff heard enough and turned his focus to the bottom of the building. The fire had clearly started on the floor; Jeff could see the wooden floorboards curling and snapping under the heat and pressure around them and being consumed in the fire. The inside of the building, behind the shattered glass, was a vision of hell. Jeff laid the water at the foot of the fire, forcing it back to keep it from creeping across the alley and to the houses nearest the corner.

"It's cooling off, I'm going to hose off the roof!" Jeff turned just long enough to see David nod, and turned his attention to spraying the flame from the top.

They worked around the building like a crew of frenzied ants, the bucket brigade tossing and sloshing water around. Another engine arrived with more men, but neighbors and locals were coming too, crowding around to watch. Jeff cursed the biddies in their dressing gowns and men in their nightcaps and suspenders hovering around and spectating like it was a polo race or something – Christ, help or stay out of the way! Didn't any of them realize they could too easily become part of the fire? But nothing could be done about it, there was too much to do in front of him.

The sun was just cresting the horizon by the time the fire was out, and the warehouse was burned out almost in its entirety. However, the flames hadn't spread, and that was enough. The lookie-loos still hovered about at a distance as Jeff stripped off his helmet and let his hair down, and Keith approached him.

"Solid work, mate; job bloody well done." Keith Mannsford, the leader of their little brigade, was friendly enough, though he wore a wan smile that suited the bags under his eyes. He was a lot like Jeff in looks, anyway; a sharp jaw, dark auburn hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin that even London's weak sun couldn't bleach. Jeff liked him well enough, but not as much as David did, for certain.

"Can't say that, can we?" David lumbered over, still shaking the exhaustion from his shoulders before slinging one arm around Keith's shoulder, and jerked his head towards the hollowed-out wreck. Jeff clicked his tongue.

"Nah, mate. We did all we could. Fire like this, it's but luck that kept it standing 'til we got here." Jeff pulled his jacket back and got his tobacco from the hard case in his trouser pocket, filling and rolling a cigarette with the practiced ease of someone who'd smoked since public school, then lit it with a little naphtha lighter he always kept in his left back pocket.

"Do mind that," Keith warned, glancing around and gently shrugging David off. "If there's any spark left, the gas--"

"I'm all the way over here, mate, Christ." Jeff rolled his eyes and turned back towards the smoking wreckage. "Was a strange fire, weren't it? Burnt funny."

"How do you mean?" Keith furrowed his brow, and Jeff didn't have to go on to see he was already thinking.

"It was hot all over, he means," David supplied. "Usually, there's a clear starting point that's hotter, or the flames are hotter near the starting point."

"Yeah, and it was goin' and goin' from all directions." Jeff blew a smoke ring. "It seemed funny, that's all."

"I'm not sure about that--" Keith started, until a snarl from the peanut gallery hit their ears and halted him:

"-- savages likely started it." Jeff, Keith, and David all looked, David scowling already, towards the older woman hissing too-loudly at her husband and indicating either Jeff or Keith. "The little reprobate carries a lighter, see?"

Ah. Jeff, then.

Jeff had never paled in the washed-out London sun, either, not that he had any say about it. Ten years, ever since he'd been shipped here from India to join David at boarding school when he was thirteen, hadn't dulled his warm-weather hues. His hair was stark red, unusual enough, and though David had been lucky enough to get their father's blue eyes, Jeff's were coal-black, just like their mother's. He looked an obvious misfit on a street of lily-white, upper-middle class urbanites, carefully cultivated with ballrooms for hothouses, where Jeff was clearly a product of a distant plantation. The crooked patches in his trousers helped him not a mite. Not well-off and with the clear markings of "the other," Jeff was used to unkind stares.

Still, for all he knew, that nearby house was hers, the old bat, he could have just saved her life!

"No respect, eh?" Jeff playfully elbowed at Keith's ribs, then dropped and crushed his half-finished cigarette in the street. "I'm going to check and see if we need to summon a hearse, and peek around and see where this started."

"Jeff--" David reached for him, but Jeff dodged his hand and strode towards the gaping hole where a door used to be, closing his canvas jacket tight.

"I'll be careful, don't you worry!" Jeff ducked under a fallen beam, pausing only for a second to bind his hair up with a bit of ribbon he kept on him for just such a purpose (a bit of golden satin he'd begged off of David's lady love, Julianna, and promised to cherish). David called for him to 'come off it,' but Jeff pretended he couldn't hear him and wound his way into the wreckage.

It was a damned sight, to say the least, one which Jeff was thankful was sabotaged by the dim light. Stored wardrobes and cases had been blasted open, revealing the tattered, ashen remnants of silk dresses likely intended to be passed on to some unfortunate debutantes. One closet held exploded furniture, the batting and down ruined with water, charred scraps of velvet peeling off of the wood, the gold leaf cracked and dropping onto the floor. The husk of a coach-and-fours (thankfully absent the 'fours,' Jeff had no desire to see another roasted horse carcass, thanks kindly) sat in one area, but past it, Jeff found half of a door blocking off another room. This one was in the worst shape. The scent of burnt meat hit Jeff's nose first. Whatever had been in it was burnt down to shapeless crags, leaving nothing but piles of char and black marks on what was left of the walls and support beams, and whoever had been in here was flat on the ground, albeit still with form enough to be distinctly human.

"Unlucky bastard," Jeff whispered, then shouted, "I've found a body!" He approached the corpse, already wiping his fingers on his trousers, then crouched down. The man had fallen in a strange position, behind what was left of a table (judging by the marks where the legs had been), either grabbing for something or holding something to his chest. Odd, but when Jeff shifted some of the mess, there was a charred box just out of the corpse's reach. Keith and David had just stomped in behind him, right as he ran his fingers along the seam of the box. "Looks like he was going for this." Jeff lifted the lid of the box, revealing banknotes: pristine, sorted, and stacked high.

"Blimey," David blurted. "That's a bloody treasure trove."

Keith, ever the thinker, crouched down for a closer look. "What's someone working here doing with all this? This surely isn't money made from running a warehouse, but..." Keith paused, flicking his eyes towards the corpse. "Jeff, give me the lid. I'm going to give this to the police."

"Yeah, but..." Jeff licked his dry lips, staring at the money. David cleared his throat, and Jeff grimaced and pushed the box and its lid to Keith. He took it up and nodded to David and Jeff.

"Fellows, I'll talk to the captain and get a coroner here to remove the poor fellow. For now, get some rest, you've earned it."

Jeff took one last look around the room as David rose and followed Keith back the way they'd come. He hadn't yet found what started the fire, but he was getting the feeling he might not. No tipped candles, no forgotten lanterns. Even the stove in the corner looked like it hadn't been overloaded, and it certainly hadn't come from the chimney. It seemed like the fire had come from the whole floor, each board marked with the telltale signs of blaze. There was one patch he could make out in the light where it looked like a snake had wound across the floor and left a night-black trail, but Jeff couldn't fathom what that might have indicated. It was queer, to say the least, and Jeff made a note of it as he departed.

There were still a few onlookers on the street as the firefighters rolled up the hoses and made to clear up the rubble from the road. Some had cleared away, but there were still quite a few folks out in their nightclothes. However, Jeff caught one more odd thing out of the corner of his eye: one man, someone he didn't recognize, fully dressed in day clothes, tailored slacks and an emerald-green waistcoat, watching from behind rectangular glasses. The moment Jeff caught his eye, though, the man briskly turned and departed.

That was queer, too. However, that was the kind of queer Jeff might be able to look a little closer at.

* * *

Julianna Newcomb, David's betrothed, sold flowers in the market, and she knew absolutely everyone. Jeff caught a few hours of sleep, shaved, and dressed in his best (clean trousers and his least-frayed suspenders, a neat chambray, and his hair tied back with a bow) before approaching her shop. She liked him nearly as well as she liked David, and smiled kindly when he pushed the door open.

"Good morning!" She had the manner and tact of a Spanish princess, her raven tresses bound in an elegant braid, all polite smiles, little curtsies, and giddy little giggles when pleased, and Jeff gamely extended his hand to take hers and kiss the back of it. "Ah, you wicked charmer!" She laughed softly, pressing a thin hand to her lips. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" 

"Just out visiting." Jeff shrugged his shoulders as casually as he could.

"Out courting, mayhaps?" Julianna winked, and went to her baskets of flowers and plucked a few blooms. "I'm certain David won't complain if you're wed first, though you'll have to run if you're to catch up to him."

"Bite your tongue, miss, I'll leave the wedding nonsense to him." Jeff laughed and tucked his hands into his pockets. "But I am visiting, to be sure. Actually, I was wondering if you might know someone."

"Ah? If I might?" Julianna looked up from her table and the flowers in her palm, eyebrows quirked. "Outside of those I've spoken of to you before? Keith Mannsford's younger sister, Lillian, isn't yet spoken for, but I'm afraid she's yet to debut. I could ask at the next quilting gathering--"

"Julie, please." Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose, still chuckling despite himself. "No, no, er, after the fire last night, there was a new fellow around, someone I haven't seen before. I was hoping you may have crossed his path on your travels."

"Oh!" Julianna turned pink, and Jeff laughed again. David liked her dearly, and it was no wonder. A pity that whenever Jeff looked at her (or any other young woman David and Julianna nudged him towards), he felt something was missing. A certain flame, he could say, with a rueful smile to himself. "Er, dear me, I presumed, beg your pardon." She pinched her skirt down to the petticoat and curtsied (as she usually did), then dared to meet his eyes again. "What was this fellow like?"

"About my size, but a bit scrawny by compare." Jeff estimated his height with his hand. "Fair skin, wore glasses." He thought harder, because hell if that would narrow it in London. "Er, dark hair? He wore something green--"

Julianna snapped a finger. "Ah! Mister Chisholm, at the tea shop on Baker Street. Green suits him, he wears it always."

“That sounds right.” He'd looked the bookish sort, Jeff had thought, a tea shop would suit a nebbish fellow like that. “Know anything of him?”

Julianna laughed softly and shook her head. “He hasn't spoken of any sisters, if that's what you mean.”

Jeff's ears went hot and flushed. “I didn't.”

“I'm merely teasing!” Julianna giggled, her ears wiggling just a little, and she fished behind her for a pin, stifling an interjection when she pricked herself, then turned back around as Jeff folded his arms. “But, er, Mister Chisholm opened his shop fairly recently, no more than a few months ago. I suppose he chose to open in London when everyone was returning from their winter estates.” She fidgeted with the little boutonniere in her hands, tugging a little sprig of something red into place. “He's polite and keeps to himself, he's knowledgeable about his trade, and even knows about flowers and herbs.” She giggled again, but this time, she was blushing. “He does speak to me from time to time, business only. I'll arrange him flowers to keep on his counter, and he'll tell me all of the different medicinal uses of the plants I'm using.”

Jeff leaned over, smirking as if to dare her. “Ah, perhaps my brother should be jealous? Or am I not the only one still courting?”

Julianna smacked his hand where it rested on the counter, then wagged a finger. “Bite your tongue, Geoffrey Shaw! Mister Chisholm is handsome enough, but I've only eyes for your brother.” She crossed her arms, frowning like a governess, but Jeff could only grin at her with the same rebellion he showed his teachers. She simply clicked her tongue. “I've no idea why you wish to speak with Mister Chisholm, but I've told you all I know.”

"Then that's all I can ask of you." He tipped his hat. "Thanks kindly, Julianna."

"Don't thank me yet." Just as Jeff turned, Julianna caught his hand and held it, and he turned back only for her to take the lapel of his coat in hand and pin the boutonniere she'd been constructing to it. "There." Her cheeks pinked as Jeff examined the little blossoms, a white carnation bound with a few little red poppies, and he graced her with a grateful smile.

"They're lovely."

"They suit you." Julianna shooed him off with a flick of her hand. "And there are plenty of young women who frequent Mister Chisholm's shop, he surely can't entertain all of them, stake your claim!"

Jeff had to withstand the urge to roll his eyes at Julianna as she ushered him out, though as he crossed paths with some of her regular customers, he caught a glimpse of their scrutinous stares and slouched into a deeper swagger.

Fuck 'em. He was a perfectly charming gentleman, wearing a boutonniere and all! Keith and David both had told him that most wouldn't outright spit at him in the street, but if someone was tipping their nose up at him, to remember that he was just as British as them and to ignore them. If he wasn't good enough for their company, then perhaps this elusive Mister Chisholm would find him suitable. Or he wouldn't. Either way, while Jeff had manners enough not to scratch himself in public, he did have one niggling little itch to indulge, and Chisholm would oblige.

Jeff detected the potpourri of the tea shop before he was able to read the gold-embossed sign, the scent of bergamot and ginger swirling in the air near the door. He peered through the window, but saw nobody at the tables, nobody at the counters. In fact, the shop seemed to be vacant, but that did nothing to assuage the curiosity niggling in the back of Jeff's mind. Just as he was about to go to the neighbor's to begin asking around, there was a call from down the road:

"Begging your pardon, do wait!" Jeff spun around to catch a glimpse of the man he was expecting to see rushing past others crowding the sidewalk with a burlap sack in hand, holding a hailing hand up as he jogged towards him. Mahogany-brown hair parted just off the center, sickly-milk-pale skin, oval-rimmed glasses, and a green paisley waistcoat – the coat was the same shade as the night before but a different pattern, surely this was Mr. Chisholm. He granted Jeff a disarming smile. "I'd merely run out of bread for tea, sir; a thousand pardons." He bowed at the waist, surprisingly graceful for a man so burdened. Jeff found himself rather taken aback, but he waved a hand.

"No, no, forgive me for snooping about; my brother's betrothed pointed me in your shop's direction, I was curious." He cleared his throat as he studied Mr. Chisholm again, feeling just a bit hot under the collar as Chisholm examined him in return. Chisholm wasn't turning his nose up, at least, but Jeff knew when a man was sizing him up. "And, er, no need to call me 'sir.' My father was 'Sir.'" He showed his teeth in the kind of grin that made the low-born girls giggle and blush, then held his hand out. "Jeff, sir. Jeff Shaw. 'Fraid we haven't met proper yet, have we?"

"Indeed, we have not." Chisholm shook his hand in return with surprising firmness. "Aaron Chisholm. Can I possibly make my tardiness up to you with a spot of tea? Anything you like."

Jeff clapped his hands in satisfaction as Aaron withdrew. He'd found the right man and had a name, now it was but to nose in a little deeper. "Happily. If it ain't quite noon, I'd prefer an Earl Grey, and strong, if you would."

The tea shop smelled stronger on the inside, of course, but Jeff couldn’t have imagined the air would be so rich. The sweet, enticing scent of lemon and orange peel coiled in Jeff's nose, and it was all he could do not to try and suck up every last ounce of sweet lavender hanging in the air from his place at Aaron's counter. Aaron had four kettles ready on the stove and readied two teapots, one with the familiar black tea and another paler leaf in the other. He poured the water into the teapots the moment steam rose from the spout, tucked both pots into cozies decorated with little ribbon roses, then set up an egg timer. Satisfied, he returned to the counter. "It surprises me that you take black tea even after the early morning. I can't drink anything quite so strong, even this early in the day; I have some trouble sleeping in the evenings, you see."

"Understood; I prefer beer myself, but it's far too early for that, innit?" Jeff grinned sheepishly. "Me and my brother – we live together – we drink tea in the mornings and beer in the evenings. Better that than risk whatever's in the water before it's boiled."

"Ah, my, but there's not been a cholera outbreak here since I was a boy! Not since they put in clean pipes throughout the city." Aaron laughed mildly, but Jeff shrugged.

"A fellow can never be too careful, eh?" As he was saying it, Aaron turned about and pulled one of the two tea bags out of the pot, poured some into a strainer, then brought his tea cup over with a pair of saucers. Jeff pointed out: "Ah, the egg timer isn't quite empty."

"I can smell it." Aaron lifted the cup towards Jeff's face, letting him scent the sweet, delicate aroma of rose hips and pale tea. “Just right, you see?” Jeff shook his head.

"I could only smell it close up. Graces, mate, how can you?"

"Ah, pardon me; it's a bit of a knack, I suppose. Someone dear to me once said I had the nose of a pig -- you know, the sort that hunt truffles in France." He turned again and brought Jeff's cup over. The tea was clean, rich and a bit reddish in color, but the flavor was good and strong, just the way Jeff liked it.

"I'll say it's a knack, mate." Jeff indicated his cup with a stout nod. "You know your way around a cup of tea." He grinned and leaned over the counter, taking Aaron in once again. He was frailly built, so it seemed, narrow through the shoulders in comparison to Jeff, his waist slender, his delicate cheekbones hollow in his slight jaw. He mostly looked, however, like the typical London-dweller. "How'd a fine fellow like you get into tea trading, then?"

"Old family connections." Aaron took a dainty sip from his own cup, his tongue flicking across his lower lip. "I found myself bored of the idle life and reached back through some of my father's contacts with the Honorable East India Trading Company and through there to China. I've sampled teas from everywhere tea can grow, and the leaves they grow in China are finer than any pale imitation we attempt in our clammy climate, and I've never quite cared as much for the tea grown in India."

“Really? I prefer it.” Jeff sipped at his tea, and smacked his lips. “Don't take me wrong, this's right lovely, but Mum used to make it with a curl of cinnamon and a spot of cream, and _that_ was heavenly.”

“Ah, I'd thought you may have been from the colonies. I visited cousins who lived on a plantation there once, but I never had the pleasure of a concoction such as that which you describe.” Aaron donned a casual, empty little smile, but Jeff could only feel relief that he wasn't staring him down. Jeff instead shrugged.

“You ought to try it.”

“I just may.” Aaron's eyes crinkled with mirth. “I host a ladies' high tea in the upstairs room every second Thursday, perhaps I'll especially order some cinnamon and set out cream. We can begin a new fashion, right here.”

“That would be something, it would.” Jeff chuckled, rocking on his elbows and taking another long drink of his tea.  Aaron added a few lumps of sugar to his, and Jeff watched him stir it in before asking, “How long have you been in business, anyway?”

“Only since April. I'd been staying with a friend in Herefordshire, but I'd been making arrangements then, and when he closed up for the season, I signed my deeds and set up shop.” He smiled into his teacup. “I've been contently occupied since.”

“D'you work alone, then?” Jeff glanced behind Aaron into the kitchen past the hearth, sighting only the door to the icebox and the tea trays all in a row. Aaron laughed into a cupped palm.

“It's not especially much, even for one fellow. I weigh tea, I brew a few pots, I bake scones in the morning, I send off orders twice a week, I'm fine on my own. Some of the ladies volunteer to assist me for the teas I host, but it's never a large crowd. More tea?” Aaron motioned as if to take Jeff's empty cup.

“Please and thank you.” Jeff grinned. “Still, that's something, it is. Successful, are you?”

“Quite!” Aaron laughed. “I'm still in business in London after a few months, after all! But as it stands, I've a bit of an underground reputation. In fact,” he leaned conspiratorially over the counter to whisper. “I've served royalty.”

“Have you, now?”

“Oh yes, mark me.” Aaron cupped a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh. “Fifteenth in line for the throne, thrice removed by marriage from Her Majesty, but royalty nonetheless.”

Jeff chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. “Cripes, you must have a reputation! Who would think a tea shop owner would get such a high profile?”

“My, my, I wouldn't say such things about me. Now, what is it you do?” Aaron poured the tea into the strainer, swirling the cup gently a few times and watching the liquid for a moment before turning and placing it back on Jeff's saucer. Jeff blinked back his surprise, and braced himself at Aaron's sudden, curious gaze, barely tempered with a mild little smile. "We can't simply stand about talking about me all day, can we?" 

"Ah, no; sorry." Jeff chuckled nervously and adjusted his hat as if he could fix himself back to rights. "Er, I'm something of that 'idle life' sort, if I'm being honest. I've got a bit of money from my father's estate, which my brother manages, but I'll admit I'm not particularly good at anything." He hesitated, sipping at his tea as Aaron continued to take him in, and Jeff could only wonder what he thought he might find. Unprompted, he added, "I was bored, though, and I couldn't stand it. Couldn't right return to what I did like, so I joined the Volunteer Fire Brigade."

"Ah!" Aaron snapped his fingers, face brightening as if suddenly thrust out from under an umbrella, "I had thought I recognized you! You were one of the fellows putting out that dreadful blaze last night, were you not?"

Oh, was that what had caught Aaron's eye? Damn if the same hadn't caught Jeff's, and there was no point in skirting the issue: "I was yes; I thought you looked familiar, as well." Jeff grinned, and decided to put some of his old dancing lessons in boarding school to use and waltz around his point: "Awful, wasn't it?" He managed to imitate a little shiver. "It kept coming and coming, like some devil from the deep was fanning the flames."

"Mm." Aaron made an agreeable little noise around the teacup at his lips. "It's been relatively dry lately, which makes your job all the harder, I suppose. All clouds, but never a drop of rain, and though it's humid, the wood still dries out."

"Aye." Jeff frowned to himself, then emptied his cup. "And..."

"I had worried, I admit; it's two blocks over from here, and with things as dry as they were, I was concerned that the blaze might spread here. I smelled the smoke, and saw it from my back window. I suppose, in a bit of a tizzy, I hurried over to spectate, as if it were something I'd want to watch." He paused, lips pursed. "I did see you, now that I think on it. Your hair, it's distinct; as red as fire itself. One rarely sees something so lovely and rare in London without paying tuppence." Aaron cracked a smile, and Jeff, warily, chuckled along. "But you were brave. I was impressed."

"I wouldn't say it's a matter of being brave. When you face the flames, you've little choice but to fight. I did what I had to." Jeff gave a shrug, then swallowed his nerves and went a step further: "I must ask, then; did you know the owner? I believe he may have died in the disaster."

"Did he?" Aaron didn't sound especially surprised, but perhaps a little sad. "I don't think I knew him, no." He broke eye contact and turned for the kitchen, halting only briefly. "A tragedy, of course... Give me a moment."

"Of course." Jeff frowned as Aaron went rummaging for something in his pantry, asking over the rustle of paper:

"Now, how long have you been a volunteer?"

"A bit more than a year." Jeff tried not to lean and gawk (though he was certain he was failing a little, studying the elegant curve of Aaron's spine and narrow arse).

"I see." Aaron returned with a small paper bag in hand. "A bit of advice, from someone who has buried friends before: try not to get too attached.” He offered the bag. “For you, good sir."

Jeff, befuddled, accepted the bag automatically, but before he could ask what Aaron meant, the door opened with a bang.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154453314@N07/36819615546/in/dateposted-public/)

"Mister Chisholm!" A boy was calling in, and before Jeff could blink twice, a sprightly lad that couldn't have been more than seventeen burst past him, grinning broadly, chestnut-brown hair a-bluster from the heated summer winds, and he bounced on his toes at the counter. "Father Sam promised we'd have tea and scones today, could you please put mine in the oven for a moment so the cream will melt a bit and--"

"Gallagher!" Someone else shouted, and Jeff turned to see a man he hadn't noticed coming in, a straw-haired fellow who looked too young to smell as strongly of tobacco as he did and donning the double-breasted knee-length black coat and collar of an Anglican priest, skirting past him. He seized the boy by his suspenders and yanked him back. "You know better than to harangue Mr. Chisholm for biscuits when I've _just_ fed you." The priest – Father Sam, Jeff supposed – shot Jeff a chilling glare, then returned his attention to Aaron, who'd lifted his fingers to his lips to hide an amused smile as Gallagher rubbed his backside and complained quietly. "Mr. Chisholm, I do hope you hadn't forgotten our meeting."

"I hadn't, but I had thought to spare a moment for lunch in advance thereof and had an unexpected customer. Has the time flown?" Aaron sought a pocketwatch from the breast of his waistcoat, then clipped it shut and turned to Jeff with regret in his downturned lips. "I'm horribly sorry, but I do have a private meeting to attend to." He tapped the bag still in Jeff's hands. "A parting gift, however, as thanks for your brave service; a few of my currant-filled scones. They're best with clotted cream, and if you put them in a warm oven and count to thirty before consuming it, I assure you you'll be a happy man."

"Your company has done such already, sir. I will, however, gladly share with my brother and spread the mirth around." Jeff tipped his hat, then promptly took one of the scones out and held it out for Gallagher with a wink. "A snack for the growing lad, then, and I'll be off!"

Gallagher squealed with glee, stuffing the entire confection into his mouth before shouting a muffled 'Fankyoo!' and receiving a quiet chide from the priest in return, and Jeff paused at the door to grant Aaron one last smile. Aaron bid farewell with a coy little wave.

Jeff didn't quite hear what Father Sam was saying on the way out, but he was certain it was about him.

* * *

 The next night, Jeff was roused from a sound sleep at a holler from David: there was another fire in the market. Ironically, a tobacco shop had gone up in smoke, but Jeff couldn't even enjoy the smell. This time, there were three bodies, one slumped in the middle of the back room, and two near the windows. Likely they'd been trying to get out, but unable to break the glass or pry the windows open before succumbing to suffocation. Jeff wondered if the flame had interrupted some sort of poker meeting or the like, because it was curious that none of them had been able to do anything about the blaze.

When he cleared the ashes of the charred corpses away, the same black snake from the warehouse fire had wound across the floorboards, leaving a sinuous trail in its wake and coiling, blacker than black, in the center of the room. Both Keith and David squatted down and examined it with him this time, Jeff using his little naphtha lighter as illumination.

"It's curious," said Keith, echoing Jeff's thoughts. David scowled at it, then tried to rub the marks away. The trail wouldn't erase, though David's attempt covered his sleeve in soot.

"I've no idea what it is," he announced, rising. "It's not my job to know, either. Likely as not, it's the trail of the fire."

"No shit." Jeff crossed his arms, still crouched down. He moved the lighter, tracing the trail around the room. "But what would cause it to twist about like that?"

"Fire's wild." Keith gestured, twirling a finger in whorls and loops through the air like an Oriental gymnast with a silk ribbon. "It moves as it pleases. It twists with the subtlest of air currents and dances where it'll burn best. It's impossible to say."

"It's queer, is all!" Jeff snorted and jumped up to stand, already moving to light a cigarette. David whistled at him and flicked a hand to snap his lighter shut.

"Let's get away from the fresh burn, first. It's dry enough to burn again."

"Come off it!" Jeff stuffed his cigarette back in his pocket and gave chase, as David and Keith were already stepping over the walls and out again towards the spectators gathered around, haunting the smoke that still darkened the witching hour. "Tell me there ain't somethin' funny about all this!"

David and Keith exchanged a glance, and Keith heaved a sigh that sounded vaguely like, "Rookies." He faced Jeff, hands firm on his hips. "Don't look for things that aren't there. Fire is strange, it's random and impossible to predict. Fools leave candles lit or don't notice when the cat's knocked the yarn into the hearth, and it's been dry, so it's catching. You're just tired." Keith motioned. "Go on and get some rest."

Jeff scowled, but David just had to add, "Maybe if you cut the card games short and got to bed sooner, you wouldn't be imagining snakes all over the floor." Jeff heard someone in the peanut gallery muttering something in a "well-I-never" tone, surely about him, and bit his tongue.

"Jackasses. I'll be watching, nonetheless." He motioned furiously, flicking his hands at David. "I smell a rat, and I don't like it."

"You're imagining things," Keith sighed, already turning to talk to some of the other volunteers cleaning up the hoses. David, too, shook his head again.

"Just go home. And, good job tonight." David trudged away to continue the cleanup, and Jeff nearly followed him, if only to retort one more time, but it wasn't worth the energy. He was just about to trudge off, when he heard a voice calling his name from behind the crowd:

“Jeff? Mister Shaw?” Jeff turned and saw Aaron jogging towards him from the edge of the crowd, wearing only his trousers and shirtsleeves. Jeff slowed and stopped to let Aaron catch up, and he strained to catch his breath when he did. “I – sorry, I – I'm glad to see you're well.”

“The worst went to those in the blaze.” Jeff shook his head. “We did all we could.”

“Oh, certainly, yes.” Aaron nodded fervently. “And an admirable job you did.” He bowed his head. “It would be an honor to provide a gift for one of the heroes of the hour. Would you kindly come by my shop tomorrow morning? I'll make biscuits to share with the entire fire department.”

Jeff grinned and set his hands on his hips. “Will you, now?” He cocked his head back as Aaron glanced back up. “Well, wouldn't right call myself a hero of any sort, but if it's for all us Volunteers, I'll gladly accept on their behalf.”

Aaron's eyes twinkled in the light from the gas lanterns. “You will share, won't you?”

“On my honor, yes.”

That got a brighter smile, and Jeff felt a comfortable warmth in the center of his very heart. “I'll have them ready for you. Forgive me for surprising you; I was just about to begin the morning bake for this afternoon's private tea when I heard the bells, and I simply had to check on you.”

Jeff waved his hand “Forgiven.” Aaron chuckled, then wiped his hand off on his trouser leg and extended it.

“Til we meet again?”

“Of course.” Jeff shook his hand, and the two parted, Aaron smiling as he turned his back, and Jeff feeling relieved and at least mollified.

Someone appreciated him, if nothing else.

* * *

Jeff dressed and shaved to look his very best before leaving the house this morning, leading David to needle him if he was off to meet a girl. Jeff blew him off with a scoff before marching out in a beeline for Aaron's shop.

Aaron was entertaining several middle-aged women at his counter, and Jeff halted at the door, loathe to interrupt (or to deal with ten-odd old biddies). Luckily, Aaron spotted him over their bouffants and buns and subtly motioned for Jeff to go to the back. Jeff dodged around, catching Aaron gesturing in such a way that he was clearly excusing himself for a moment, and sure enough, as Jeff reached the back of the shop, the kitchen window flew open. Aaron leaned out, beaming and holding a small linen sack.

"Here you are. Lemon biscuits, perfect with tea or suitable by themselves." Jeff reached up to accept the bag, but Aaron touched his hand just as he made to withdraw. "And thank you again for your service." A peal of laughter echoed behind Aaron, and Jeff caught his expression as it flashed from his pleasant neutral to something a bit sour. "Forgive me; one of the ladies' book clubs is holding a meet, and I must entertain until they settle into their novels."

 "All's forgiven, sir." Jeff tucked the little sack of biscuits into his jacket pocket. "I do hope to see you again."

 "Certainly--"

 "But not after a fire, you hear?" Jeff set his hands on his hips, smirking despite how very much he meant every word he said: "It might be dangerous for you to come running to watch every time you hear bells, and I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

Aaron shook his head, chuckling, and leaned his elbow on the sill. "You don't seem to mind the rest of the spectators."

"I don't care about them. You're the one what gives me sweets." Jeff patted his pocket. "I'm askin' as a friend -- be careful."

"I'll take it to heart, but make no promises." Aaron turned, as both he and Jeff clearly heard a shrill voice calling his name. "Ah, I'm sorry; it seems I must continue turning down meetings with lovely daughters. 'Til we meet next!"

"'Til then." Jeff waited as Aaron closed the window and returned to his patrons, then promptly fished out one of the cookies. Aaron had cut them to look like little triangles, all dusted with pale sugar, and the little pastry melted in his mouth with a perfect touch of lemony flavor. After a night saving half of a city block, this was just the reward he deserved.

With little else to do for the day, Jeff attempted to content himself until the card houses opened with a stroll down Market Avenue, listening to the fishmongers selling the last of their wares, girls hollering about fresh, ripe strawberries and lovely violets, the bustle of maids and servants shopping for the evening meals and of business as usual on a hot afternoon. He settled near the water pump beside a brewery, seating himself on a bench, and enjoyed a few more of Aaron's delightful little biscuits.

"'Allo, guv!" Jeff jumped at a small, pitchy voice at his elbow, and jumped twice before finding that the brown-haired, loud-mouthed boy from the day before was crouched at his elbow, beady brown eyes affixed to the little bag. "Mark me, are those from Mr. Chisholm?"

 Jeff raised an eyebrow. "Aye." He held the bag out, recalling that Aaron had encouraged him to share. "'Ere, have one."

The boy – Gallagher, was it? – studied Jeff for a curious second, then snatched one. "Don't mind if I do!" He ate it in two bites, settling onto the bench to lick his laps. "Funny, that, I was just coming to thank you again for yesterday, here I am thanking you again! Awful generous, mate, thanks!" He beamed, and Jeff naturally smiled back.

 "Don't make too much of it, I really just wanted to see the sour look on that priest's face."

 Gallagher laughed, but jabbed at Jeff with his elbow. "Be nice, now, Father Sam can be a sourpuss but he's got a heart o' gold!"

 "Aye, well." Jeff studied Gallagher again. "This time, I was just being nice, Mister, er--"

"Oh, 'swounds, me bloody manners." Gallagher jumped to his feet. "Er, Sheehan, Gallagher Sheehan." He half-bowed at the waist, hat tumbling from his head with the swift motion, but he caught it before it could hit Jeff's knee. He then grinned, catlike with all of his teeth and a bit of a sly bend in the angle. "But Gallagher's fine. Father Sam says pixies like me oughtn't bother pretending we're real boys. And you?"

"Geoffrey Shaw, but Jeff's fine." Jeff, shrugging, motioned to the bench again. "And you needn't mind your manners 'round me, eh? I only fuss with that for ladies and finer company -- you know, folks what don't care for me anyway." Jeff winked and offered another biscuit, and Gallagher jumped back onto the bench. 

"Right kind 'o you, Mister Shaw."

"Growing boy needs to eat, don't he?"

Gallagher leveled Jeff with a hard stare. "I'm twenty."

Jeff swiped the biscuit right back out of his hands and made as if to eat it himself. "Why didn't you say so! I already shared with you one, begone with you, you greedy little ape!"

"Oi!" Gallagher grabbed the biscuit back, though Jeff made no effort to keep it from him. "Rude! And who are you to call me a kid, ya skinny pony?!"

"Pony?" Jeff quirked an eyebrow, and Gallagher reached and tugged his hair.

"It's a pony's tail!" He grinned as Jeff squawked and scrambled back, but Gallagher kept his grip and wrapped the bottom of his hair around his fingers. "Cripes, I was just wonderin' yesterday if it was real, and it is!"

"Geroff, ya grabby little imp!"

"Ain't never seen it so red, like poppies or fire." Gallagher beamed, marveling at his hair where it shone in the light and seeming extraordinarily pleased with his own simile. "How'd it get so red?"

Jeff finally forcibly reclaimed his hair and smoothed it back into place. "It just is, alright? Not like I chose it, and it ain't never done me much good, neither."

Gallagher frowned, lips turned down and eyebrows up. "Oh? Well, it's loverly, nonetheless." He kicked his legs, watching his feet swing back and forth a few times, uncomfortable silence sitting heavy as Jeff rolled and smoked another cigarette. Then, Gallagher broke the tension: "Can I ask you something else?"

"You just did." Jeff smirked as Gallagher gasped his indignity.

"Oh, you--! I mean, somethin' else!" Jeff motioned, and Gallagher peered around, studying him like an ape with no recognition of his reflection might a mirror. "I was wondering how you knew Aaron. I've seen you 'round him, and all."

"Oh, that? We met by chance. He rather caught my eye, and I struck up a conversation."

"Is that all?" Gallagher grinned broadly. "Thanks Heavens for that! I tell him, I do, he needs to talk to more people! I know the ladies tire him so, but he's far too shut-in all the time! People'll think he's a bloody recluse if he don't go and smile outside now and again!" 

"Aye?" Jeff raised an eyebrow, and decided it would be unwise to mention that he'd first tracked him down on a curious hunch. "You talk like you've known him a while."

"Not especially, no. A few months." Gallagher shrugged. "Just since me and the Father were introduced. I think he needs more friends!” Gallagher laughed a little. “It seems like the only people he talks to are me an' the Father. Ah, customers too, but do they count?” He rubbed his chin, as Jeff raised an eyebrow in puzzlement.

“Is that so? He said he stayed with a friend while he was organizing.”

“Nobody I know, then.”

“Ha, really?” Jeff grinned broadly. “Not even out courting, is he?”

This got Gallagher to scrunch his nose up. “None o' my business, and likely none 'o yours, either.” He hopped up to his feet. “Don't worry about him too much, a'right? I'm just happy he has you! Sure, Father Sam says it's best to keep your head low and mind yourself first, but it's good to have friends.” He grinned and bowed at the waist. “I'm meant to be working, so I'd best go. Watch yourself, alright? Aaron says you've got a dangerous job, so be careful!” He grabbed another biscuit from Jeff's satchel and popped it into his mouth, then waved a quick salute before pivoting and jogging down the road. "Cheers, good talking to ya!"

“Oi!” Jeff tried to snatch him by the collar, but the little shit was quick! He grunted his frustration as the boy vanished, but settled back down, crossing his arms. Aaron did keep some strange company, didn't he? Still, it was good to know someone was watching out for him, even if he did seem too much like a boy and said some strange things. As he lit up a cigarette and puzzled over what Gallagher had meant, a door nearby opened wide.

“My,” came a sibilant voice, and Jeff looked to see a thin man with narrow features leaning out of the apothecary opposite the brewery, frowning at Gallagher's departure the same as him. “What a loud and energetic boy, especially in this unspeakable heat!” Jeff turned on the bench curiously as the man, with pale hair combed to a sloppy side part, wearing a doctor's coat, fanned himself, and the man seemed to notice him in return. “Ah, young fellow! Whatever was the commotion with that boy?”

“Got me, mate.” Jeff shrugged his shoulders. “I think he just is a commotion, from what I can tell.”

The snake-faced man laughed softly, cupping his fingers to his mouth like a demure debutante with a fan, but approached Jeff. “Ah, I do beg your pardon for intruding on your afternoon. I'm afraid we've not met! I'm Doctor Charles Yancy, the proprietor of this shop.”

“Ah. Jeff Shaw.” Jeff didn't quite look at him, but instead to the sign behind him, a gold and red banner hung from the rafters advertising “Doctor Yancy's Potions and Powders – a cure for all your ailments!” Snake oil, then. “Sorry about the noise then, sir.” He tried to get to his feet, but as he did, the doctor took hold of his wrist.

“Your knuckles are bright red, boy. Mild burns, is it?” Dr. Yancy cocked his head side to side. “You play with fire, do you? If you'll come this way, I've a cream that can ease it.”

Jeff yanked his hand back, having no intention of finding out what snake oil felt like on his abraded knuckles, but made himself smile to ease the good doctor. “I'm afraid I'm used to scuffed knuckles and the like, so I'll decline.” He took a step back, but the doctor held his hands up in mock surrender.

“Ah, a pity. I'll not force you, sir, but my offer remains.” Dr. Yancy's smile only spread, somehow holding up neatly despite the heat and brightness that made him squint to take Jeff in, but Jeff looked past him as he got to his feet. He read the banner again, scanning the rest: “Herbal Remedies and Cures from the Mystic East.” He snorted, but shrugged his shoulders.

“I'll pass for now, mate. Eastern medicine was always nothing but bunk to me.” He stuffed one hand in the pocket of his breeches and swung the bag of biscuits at his side as he strolled away. He could practically feel the Doctor staring him down as he departed, though, and briefly found himself wondering what kind of snake oil salesman duped enough people to afford a brick and mortar establishment.

Then, he enjoyed another biscuit and thought fondly of Aaron. He'd find somewhere else to loiter and enjoy the rest of the biscuits, play cards and flirt with barmaids, until night fell and he had to worry that this heat would turn into fire.

* * *

There was no fire overnight. Jeff was lucky enough to sleep the whole night until noon, when David demanded he rouse and dress and get out of the house for a while.

“Maybe actually try talking to a woman,” he'd griped at Jeff as Jeff soaped himself under the arms and across the chest at the scullery sink. “One who's not serving you pints!”

“I like the ones that serve me pints,” Jeff complained right back, but he still patted himself dry, dressed and stalked out of the house. 

Luckily, Aaron had no regular guests today, no book club, no old biddies crowding around his counter, so when Jeff came to the window, Aaron, beaming, waved him in and immediately turned to put on a kettle. The room smelled of roses and rosemary today, stronger than usual and just a bit heady, but Aaron's kind expression made his heart light.

"Earl Grey, Mister Shaw?"

"Please, Mister Shaw's my brother. But yes, thank you kindly." Jeff rested his elbows on the counter, observing as Aaron went through the familiar motions of making and brewing a pot of tea. There was a content sort of domesticity to it, and a sensation bubbled through Jeff's chest that reminded him a little of David's quirked grin as he watched Julianna carve and serve a roasted chicken (forget how she'd burnt the wings and that it all tasted of tree bark). He tried to evade that funny thought by casting his eyes around the room, before landing on the mantle. It was decorated mostly with jars of dried flowers and herbs, but there was an empty space at one end and a votive portrait at the other, a photograph of a young woman in profile. She was lovely even in shades of grey, her soft cheeks painted in rosy pink, her eyes colored the same green as Aaron's, with a gently sculpted nose, a proud smile, and a twist of dark hair cast over her shoulder and the lace of her dress. Aaron seemed to catch him looking, so he indicated the photograph. "She's lovely. Your mother?"

Aaron laughed shortly, but cut it off with a little force. "Goodness, no; my sister." He poured Jeff's tea, then circled out from behind the counter to take the portrait up, frame and all and returned with it. "Our estate manager had her take photographs he could send to suitors upon her completion of finishing school, to lure them into courting an orphaned heiress due her half of our parents' fortune. She gave me her favorite as a token of affection. She said--" Aaron laughed again, this time with spirit to it, "If she had to sit for hours upon hours to appear pretty for ten-odd strangers, she'd be happier to sit on my mantle for the rest of my days, as lovely as she would ever be."

An heiress? Jeff quirked an eyebrow behind his teacup. He shouldn't have been surprised; Aaron's manners had ever been those of nobility, his dress and carriage of low nobility despite being a tradesman. "Is she older than you?" 

"By mere minutes; we came as a matched set, you see." Aaron edged his thumbs down the sides of the photograph, not quite looking at Jeff.

Ah. Well, the rest was none of his business, but he still had to ask as Aaron surveyed the photograph again as though he had not seen it a thousand times: "I suppose a lady as attractive as her is wed by now. May I address her as the Lady...?"

"Anna is her name." Aaron turned the portrait over in his hands. "And, er, no. My sister was ever high-spirited, too much a handful for the average, sensible man." A chuckle tumbled loose of him. "She wrote me from school, telling me of how she and her classmates organized letter-writing campaigns to the House of Commons -- imagine! -- requesting that women be allowed to vote!" He chortled, mirthful at the prospect. "Such a dear, clever thing, too. She would pad her petticoats with sachets of dried flowers so she'd entrance unwitting young men with a radiant scent, she was talented at the pianoforte and painting, and better read than most men I speak to." Aaron sighed wistfully. "I do miss her..." His brow furrowed, and Jeff got the sudden idea that he'd gone away, somewhere very distant. Jeff also noticed that he was speaking of someone who was no longer with him. Aaron shook it off, then turned her portrait over and backed away from the counter. "Forgive me my ruminations. Allow me to prepare some sandwiches. Do you care for watercress?"

"I like it well enough." Jeff stepped sideways to peer back into the kitchen as Aaron, lips still drawn tight, fetched out a jar containing a stalk of watercress with the roots still on and began to trim away the leaves. "Er, and I must say, I know what it is to have a sibling distant."

"Oh?" Aaron didn't pause in rocking the knife against the board.

"Aye. David, my brother."

"Oh." This made Aaron pause a moment. "Forgive my presumption, but you were born in India, were you not?"

"No presuming needed; it's obvious, ain't it?" Jeff twirled a stray strand of his hair around a tan finger.

"And, er, you weren't raised together?" Aaron had gone on chopping, but flicked his gaze back towards Jeff here and there.

"We were, actually, but only 'til he was sent away." Jeff stuffed his hands in his back pockets. "He's nine years my senior, y'ken? I was five when he was sent away to get a proper British education in the motherland. We didn't come back together until I was sent here too, nearly a decade on." He twisted his fingers in the stray threads in the bottom of his pockets, wrapping them around his knuckles. "Cor, did I miss 'im.”

“I see.” Aaron nodded, as he pushed the watercress aside and took a loaf of bread from the breadbox and a jagged knife from a block on the counter. “It's a common story, sadly; I was sent to college, and Anna to finishing school. Though, I envy you, in a way.” He smiled without looking up from his work. “I've only traveled to India once to visit some distant cousins for the winter, and other than that one visit, I've rarely left home. I didn't even get to leave the family estate, really; the boat there, the train from the port, the carriage from the station, and then, three months at what was merely an imported English manor.” He smiled wryly. “I imagine your upbringing has likely given you a unique perspective on life. If nothing else, I hear it's lovely there, even if you were without your brother.”

“Suppose so.” Jeff shrugged a shoulder and thought back of his childhood, the thick, lush jungle surrounding the property, the banana trees and vines like ropes, the expanses of cotton fields that he could run through like a wild boy until his Ayah dragged him back by his ear, and a smile overcame him for a fond moment. “Suppose it depends on where you are, too.” He thought again of his Ayah, the kind old nursemaid with a face like a wrinkled little walnut shell and warm hands rubbed smooth from a long life of labor, who'd cared for him until he'd been carted off to school, and then of the people she was a substitute for. His smile faded. “I rather had to leave, though. Sometimes, I miss it all, but then again, I've got David again now, so...”

“Ah.” Aaron had halted, with four complete sandwiches laid out on a tea towel before him, and a contemplative look on his face. “And if you wanted to go back, could you? Would you?”

A curious question, but Jeff instinctively laughed at it. Before he could answer, the shop bell rang, and a gruff voice chased: “Aaron, we're here.”

“Ah, goodness!” Aaron jerked from the conversation, and Jeff turned to see the yellow-haired priest – Glenn, was it? – and Gallagher at the door, already doffing his cap as the Father fixed his. “I was just finishing tea, deepest apologies!” He swept the sandwiches onto plates and hurried out to set them on the table. Jeff noticed the priest glowering between Jeff and Aaron, Hope-diamond-blue eyes shaded by the brim of his hat, and Jeff found himself scowling back. What was his problem? He was the rude arse keeping his hat on inside. Aaron didn't seem to notice, instead returning to the kettle. “I'll prepare a cup for the pair of you.”

“Take your time,” the priest muttered, and reached into the Napoleon pocket of his coat. Aaron stuttered out an 'ah-ah-ah.' 

“No tobacco inside, please, it burns my nose.”

“Fine.” The priest groaned, but motioned to Jeff. “You, you're a smoker. Come give me a light.” He shot Gallagher a hard look, then strolled out the door. Jeff sniffed, nostrils flaring, but followed with a short wave to Aaron.

“Back in a moment.”

The moment the shop door shut, Father Sam motioned for Jeff to step to the side of the building, away from the window. Jeff followed, but as he reached for the lighter in his back pocket, the Father caught him by the collar. “Who on God's Earth are you, and why are you hanging off of Aaron like a bloody courtesan?”

“Hanging off of him?!” Jeff sputtered and pushed him off. “Who the hell are you, and what gives you the right to interrogate me?!”

“Father Samuel Glenn.” Sam said it as if it should mean something, nostrils flaring, and he quickly cast his eyes over each shoulder to the otherwise quiet street, then added, even softer, “Now answer my questions.”

“Christ, I thought priests were shepherds, not jailors!” Jeff threw his hands back, pacing stiffly as he got a cigarette out of his hard case and lit it up. “I ought'n't be surprised, considerin' all the Sisters what rapped my knuckles, but--”

“Shut your mouth and answer the question.” Sam folded his arms tight across his chest, the heels of his shoes clicking together as he drew himself up. Jeff raised an eyebrow, but sealed his lips around his cigarette, exhaling the smoke out his nose. Sam's scowl deepened as the silence sat between them, and after a minute, he snarled, “Well?”

Jeff blew a smoke ring at the overcast sky and smirked. “You said to shut my mouth, and far be it for me to disobey a priest.” He stuck his tongue out at Father Sam, but Sam snapped a bony hand out and pinched his cheek.

“Mark me, it's for your own good I know who you are!” The Father gave him an imploring stare, searching his face for something, but Jeff just pushed him off again.

“I'm nobody! Just a firefighter. With the Her Majesty's Metropolitan Fire Department, Volunteer Fire Brigade.” He scowled back at Sam. “Aaron's a friend, I caught sight of him when he was playing lookie-loo at a fire, we started to talk, and I happen to find his company pleasant! Good God!” Jeff huffed and spat the rest of his cigarette at the ground. “You, that Irish boy, why are you both so tetchy with him?!”

Sam caught him by the collar and pulled him close to mutter. “He's had troubles before. I'd rather not see a repeat of them.”

“Troubles?” Jeff arched his back, arms and shoulders tensing. “What sort of troubles? What, was he robbed? Shaken down?” Then, something else stung him: “And what makes you think I'll do that?”

“Nothing.” Sam's affect was as flat and even as the lines of his lips and brow. “But one can't know.”

“Is it me? You got something against me?” Jeff felt as hot as his hair looked, and damn if he wasn't tempted to rip the top buttons off of his shirt and let off some steam. The Father was unfazed.

“Calm yourself.” Sam eased back, and went about lighting his cigarette. “You're acting like a bloody ape. No more manners than one, at least.”

Something snapped in Jeff, and he reached out and grabbed the Father's dog collar. “You bastard, you--!!”

“Geoffrey?!” Jeff realized his elbow was back, and Aaron was at the door, a hand over his mouth. He also knew exactly where his clenched fist had been about to go (namely, through Sam's teeth), and he released Sam's collar and pushed him back.

“Sorry; temper got the better o' me for a moment.”

To Jeff's unspoken disappointment, the Father looked irritated rather than afraid, and he merely huffed, straightened his jacket, and marched past Aaron and into the shop without a second look. Aaron didn't look at him either as Jeff swaggered towards him, the heat in his face from shame as much as anger. Even so, Aaron stepped close to Jeff. “I'm dreadfully sorry about him; he has that effect on people sometimes, I'm afraid.”

“Why would someone that bloody nasty be a priest, anyway?” Jeff's lip curled, but he cursed under his breath and tried to bear it back. Aaron clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“I assure you, he's quite good at what he does.” He flicked a glance into the window, where Gallagher had already begun devouring one of the sandwiches and was getting a sound scolding for his impatience by Father Glenn. “He's merely, er, abrasive. He's a friend, though.” Aaron lowered his eyes, fingers tangled in front of him. “Ever since dear Anna fell ill, he's worried over me.”

Jeff felt a pang, but it didn't scuttle his anger entirely: “That's no excuse to act like an arsehole.”

“No, it's not, and I apologize on his behalf.” Aaron shook his head. “Please understand when I say I sympathize.”

Something about the way he said that threatened to raise Jeff's anger back to a boil. “I'd like to believe you, but you don't look like I do in a city like this.” He started to turn, but Aaron caught his sleeve.

“Do wait; let me at least give you your lunch.” Jeff stopped cold, and turned just as Aaron pivoted and returned to the shop. Jeff noticed through the window that Aaron deliberately did not look at Sam as he passed into the kitchen, though if Sam caught it, he didn't react. Aaron returned after a moment with one of the sandwiches wrapped in brown butcher paper. He extended it to Jeff, and Jeff accepted.

“Thanks, mate.” He was about to withdraw, but Aaron slid his fingers over to catch Jeff's knuckles.

“I meant it.” He lowered his eyes again, his expression as cloudy as the heavy sky. “I know what it is to feel as if I am being watched, observed for even a single slip.” He hung his head low, and his fingers trembled against the back of Jeff's hand. Jeff finally sighed it out.

“It's fine. I really had best go.” Jeff chanced a look back into the window, right as Sam turned his face away and pretended he hadn't been watching their interaction. Aaron withdrew his hands again and laced his fingers.

“Yes, perhaps.” He drew himself up and pushed his smile back on. “But do promise to take tea with me again sometime soon, won't you?”

“I will.” Jeff bowed a bit, pretending he had manners again, and strolled down the road, knowing Aaron would watch until he turned the corner. He nibbled at his sandwich, still pretending he was a reputable man who didn't mind the stares of the few people he began to pass through the thick heat, but even though the preparation was fine, it was tasteless on his tongue. There was too much bitterness in the back of his throat.

He was used to the cold stares in the street by now, but somehow, they burned when they came from one more closely connected to him. He thought to soothe it, so as not to chafe under Aaron's company the next time they crossed paths, and yet, the further away he got, the more he wondered at the strangely heavy notes that had slid into their conversation.

The notion ached in him again. Fuck it, he thought, surely there'd be a card room open soon enough. He could get his mind off of that priest's unkind stare and Aaron's curious questions before night fell and brought with it the chance to prove himself.

* * *

Jeff was in the middle of a hand when the bell began to ring in the street. He hardly had enough time to gather his winnings and blow a kiss to the serving girls before running out into the street to join the rest of the crew.

David pitched his canvas jacket at him as he arrived, and Jeff tugged it on and latched it on as quick as he could before facing the blaze. He couldn't see David's disapproving glare as he took up the hose and focused on the windows of the blazing building. He recognized the sign dangling off of the crooked post as a pub he'd frequented a few times, just as Keith hollered that he'd turned the pump on and to start spraying. Jeff could still taste a little of the ale in the back of his throat, but he braced himself, grounding his boots on the cobblestones, and faced the fire with the hose in hand.

It never got any less frightening. Jeff could still feel the flames through the thick canvas of his firefighter's jacket, and as he advanced, spreading the spray left and right. He wondered if this was the Hell the Sisters had warned him of in boarding school, the flames that consumed everything in howling misery. Just like the last fires, they'd come too late to save the building, and could only hope to keep it from spreading. 

Except Jeff could hear people inside now. Wailing. Moaning. Screaming. He whipped back around to David and pushed the end of the hose into his hand, shouting, “I've got to go in there! They're still alive!”

“NO!” David let go of the hose just as Jeff made to grab an ax off of the cart and caught him by the arms. “It's too late! You'll only join them!”

“But--”

“Geoffrey, now's not for arguing!” David threw him back towards the front of the line. “Save the ones you can save, and don't worry about the rest!”

Jeff gaped back at him, his chest aching with pangs, but took up the hose. He stood his ground and did his best to cover the fire from spreading east, listening to the dying screams of those caught in the blaze, like a demon standing over the prostrated souls of the damned.

When the blaze did die, when the fire gave and left the building a shivering, charred husk, when Keith gave the signal to stop spraying, Jeff threw down the hose and marched towards the remnants. David shouted something he couldn't hear, but Jeff didn't want to hear it anyway. He stormed through the hole where the door had fallen out from and looked around the room. Sure enough, the stench of meat spoiled the air, and a charred body was sprawled near the door, skull under hands as if he had thought to protect himself. Jeff winced, then cast his gaze around the room.

There were more corpses, many in worse condition, but just as Jeff was turning away to spit his disgust and shame into the street, he caught a glimpse of silver on one of the dead in the lamplight, and approached it to find a knife stuck in the corpse's breast. Jeff's heart skipped a beat, and when he looked twice at the bodies, he realized that not all of them had been trying to go for the door. They were thrown into walls and collapsed in the middle of the room. There had been a struggle.

“Cripes, Jeff!” Keith snatched Jeff's collar, and Jeff, mouth still working with horror. “What are you doing? The Metropolitan Police will deal with the dead once the spark's died, you've got to--”

“Someone killed them.” Jeff pointed at the knife. “One of them was stabbed, you can't deny that!”

Keith looked, blanched, but tugged at Jeff's arm again. “Perhaps they're the idiots what started it, or they were arguing over something. We'll never know.” Keith shook his head, eyebrows knit up under his cap. “David told me you tried to run in alone and save them. It's brave, but foolhardy, Jeff, these fires move too fast sometimes.”

“I could have tried!” Jeff threw an arm towards Keith, but Keith grabbed his arm, drawing himself up with a regal, authoritative mien.

“You're being unreasonable.”

All his dignity was nothing in the face of Jeff's ire. “And worse, it wouldn't have done any good! Someone killed these men!” David came through the door just as Jeff shouted this, and strangled a panicked noise. Jeff knelt down, dusted the floor with his bare palm, and revealed the black trail on the ground. “Just like the others! Look at this!” He stomped down next to it, as both Keith and David stared at him, Keith impassive, and David suddenly livid. He marched over to David and cuffed him across the back of his head.

“Stop shouting hysterical nonsense in the street, you daftie!” David shoved him for good measure, but just as Jeff wound up to snarl back, he was caught short:

“Even if it weren't nonsense,” Keith said, soft and dangerous, “Nobody would believe you.” Jeff's heart stopped cold, as Keith stepped forward and pushed his dark hair back from his forehead, looking tired from the pits of his coal-dark eyes. “We're merely volunteers. We're just here to put out fires. Boys like us, one toe out of line and you're dashed back to nothing.” He crossed his arms, chin dropping to his chest. “Keep your head low. Just try to enjoy being a hero, and try not to die doing it.”

Jeff sucked in air, needing something to fill the black space that flooded his head at all of Keith's implications. Then, he sealed it all in, sucked his lips into his mouth, and bowed his head, trying to ride the anger out. David punched his shoulder again and muttered something about how he was a good kid, but Jeff wasn't listening.

No, his eye had caught on something else. Another knife left on the ground, this one with a scrap of silk caught in it. Jeff waited until David and Keith had walked away before kneeling down and snatching it up.

He was livid such that he couldn't see straight, but he could think enough to know he should hold on to that. Maybe if he had more solid evidence, he could get Keith and David to listen to him, anyone to listen to him.

He stormed off to find a clock, on the off chance the pubs were still open, but there was a call behind him: “Young man! I say, young man!” Jeff tried to keep walking, until: “With the red hair!” He halted and pivoted, winding up, but he recognized the man as he crossed under the flickering streetlight and approached – the snake oil salesman from the other day. Doctor Yancy. Jeff recalled, as he smiled – smirked, he had one of those faces that couldn't smile – and took hold of Jeff's cuff. “The young man with the scorched knuckles. I shouldn't be surprised to find you here.” Then, he leaned close to whisper: “I heard what you said. You think someone set the fire.”

Jeff swallowed hard. “I do.”

“I had thought so!” Doctor Yancy scoffed and bit his lip. “I'm not the only one who thinks so, either. Some of the other business owners are concerned that there may be an arsonist about.”

Jeff's heart lifted a little – Christ, was it good to be told he might be right, especially when there just might be proof in his jacket pocket. “Nobody's believed me yet.”

“I do.” Yancy patted his shoulder, and Jeff ignored the little chill he got at the man's proximity. “I'm frightened for my business and life. Perhaps you can help me protect myself, if you can tell me what you know.”

“Yeah.” Jeff bobbed his head agreeably. “I can do that. At your shop?”

“Any time tomorrow. I've no appointments, and I can accommodate.” Yancy stepped back and curtsied, smiling again. “Sleep well, young hero.”

Jeff watched Yancy depart, and gathered himself. He was still angry, yes, but at least someone believed what he was saying and just might listen to him. Plus, he had a little scrap of proof now. As he walked on for home, he drew the fabric out again and held it up in the light. Some of the ash slid off with a swipe of his thumb, revealing a swipe of green paisley.

Something about that verdant green hit Jeff like an arrow through the heart. It didn't seem like it could be real, and perhaps Jeff was assuming too much, but maybe he needed to think about the reason he'd first gone to talk to Aaron.

* * *

The streets were already baking when Jeff woke and got himself dressed in the morning, steam rising off of the fog that had settled on the paving stones overnight, and Jeff didn't even bother with a jacket. Who could blame a fellow for going about underdressed in this heat? Jeff only had to muse for a moment that it was as hot as Hell, before shaking off memories of the night before and settling on exploring the remnants thereof. He still had the scrap of green silk in his pocket, and he ran his thumb across it a few times, anxiety swirling in his chest faster with each step he took.

 Aaron's shop was closed. There was a sign on the front door in impeccable, florid script, announcing that the proprietor was under the weather and apologizing for the inconvenience. Jeff knocked twice, but there was no answer. Perhaps he really was ill; perhaps the heat had gotten to him. He glanced up at the darkened windows, then over his shoulders at the others on the street. He recognized a few of Julianna's regulars down the row whispering already. He hesitated to go, a pang of concern for Aaron twisting in his chest. Still, Aaron was a polite creature; he would have answered the first time were he in a state to. Jeff decided to return later to leave a note, but he had no paper on him and other business in need of his attention.

Market Avenue was less crowded than normal. Jeff could imagine most of the serving-folk had done their shopping before the sun had reached its apex to avoid the worst of the heat, which was fine by him. The sky was still blanketed with grey – London ever was – but the yellow disc of the sun bled through and beat down on him, making his skin bronze with sweat and slicking his hair a shade darker. He ducked his head low as he roved down the street towards the brewery and that old church, where he'd seen Gallagher and Charles Yancy before.

When he arrived, it was to find Doctor Yancy standing behind a market post set up in front of his establishment, packing bottles into a wooden crate. He greeted Jeff with a broad smile and a quick bow at the waist with a flourish of his hand. “Ah, my invited guest! Mister Shaw, was it?”

“Aye.” Jeff halted at a distance, keeping his hands tucked in his pockets. Yancy laughed agreeably, but closed the lid on the last box.

“Won't the strapping young lad help me carry this in? I'll pour you some cold water. Or would you prefer tea?” Yancy barked a brief laugh, already turning without waiting for Jeff to assent. “Ah, but we're both Englishmen here, of course tea. Come along inside!”

Jeff grunted, but took up the crate and followed. Yancy led Jeff through the storefront, which was similarly loaded with bins of strange powders – allegedly roots or animal bones and the like – and bottles of what Jeff was certain was merely water, herb oil, and ink.

He showed Jeff where to put the crate, then directed him to a spiraling stairwell. "Upstairs, if you will." Jeff peeked to the downstairs before ascending, but could make nothing out. At the top of the steps, however, was an unlocked door.

Doctor Yancy had a sparse little flat above his store, with a table and chairs in front of the hearth in the front room and little else. Jeff got the feeling he didn't entertain often, even as the Doctor stoked the little flame and brewed a pot of tea with the practiced ease of someone who'd done it all his life. Jeff took the seat furthest from the fire and watched as the Doctor poured.

"Sugar, Mister Shaw?"

"None, thanks." Jeff shrugged and watched the backs of his hands, his skin the same brown as the wood. Doctor Yancy delivered him a cup with a teaspoon still swirling in it. The tea was night-black and evinced the scent of flowers. It wasn't Earl Grey, but it didn't smell offensive. Doctor Yancy sat down with a cup of his own, swirling it on its saucer.

“It may be hot outside, but to heat oneself from the inside can help to make ones outside feel cooler, don't you agree?” Yancy seated himself, crossing one leg over the other and granting a bemused look from across the table. “I hear in distant India, their men often sit in rooms of hot rocks to sweat the impurities from their bodies.”

Jeff scoffed. “ _Yogis_. It wasn't all men, just some, a certain religion. I never met one in person, only heard stories.” He imagined the Doctor couldn't boast of much more. Yancy didn't seem to be particularly interested in the concept anyway.

“Ah, so you've been. I shouldn't be surprised.” Yancy leaned over the table with interest. “You've such an exotic look.”

“Do you think so?” Jeff tried to remember what David had told him to do and say when someone directly addressed him about his “flaws,” as David had couched it. “I suppose I am as God made me.” He slouched, staring into his tea, then took a sip. It was bitter, but there was a natural sweetness somewhere in it. Something floral.

“Yes, yes, I can see that.” Yancy smirked, and it took all of Jeff's willpower not to give him a nasty look or to point out that he wasn't 'exotic,' that Yancy was merely boring. He looked like every single other Londoner there was, all sallow and pale, with sunken cheeks and pointy chin and no color even in the sun. “I'd gladly ask after your experiences with the mystic medicines of the Orient, but we're not here to discuss medicine, and you're not a doctor.” He leaned over the table, interest sparking in his eyes as Jeff gripped his teacup with white knuckles and took another sip. “You're a volunteer firefighter. And I need your help.”

“You see,” Yancy went on – like every other wealthy man around here, he loved the sound of his own voice, Jeff mused – “I and many of the other business owners here are concerned that these fires are not necessarily random.” He gestured over the table to Jeff. “You've observed things that have concerned you, and I was fortunate enough to hear you discussing it with your superiors and being dismissed! It nags at me, that neither the Metropolitan Fire Brigade nor the police have made any sort of statement over these fires!” He flipped a hand flamboyantly, and Jeff nodded, clearing his throat.

“It sounds spurious, I suppose, especially from one of the junior members of the group.” Heat came to his cheeks, and he took another sip from the tea. Whatever it was, it was good, though it wasn't helping to calm his nerves. Something about the doctor still made the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end – he was even more eerie up close, but Jeff had to be polite. “But while I know Mister Mannsford – the captain – likely wants to avoid a panic, I can't not see what is plainly obvious to me.”

“Of course not, you're a sharp lad, you're allowed an opinion!” Yancy leaned forward, an elbow on the table. His gaze flicked to Jeff's teacup, then back to Jeff, his focus squarely drilling into Jeff's face. “Now, do tell me what it is you saw.”

Jeff swallowed thickly, then took another sip of tea and cleared his throat. “The fires burn strangely, blazing from all directions instead of just a single spot, and they're difficult to quell.” He could feel Yancy watching his mouth move. “Usually, we can find an overturned candle, or blaze marks from the hearth or the like, showing where it started, but I've been looking and there's no obvious starting point. What there is, though, are these strange tracks on the ground.” Jeff traced curlicues and whirls on the table. “Black char marks, like some great ink snake slid through and left a trail, or a sprawl of vines aflame.” 

Yancy's eyebrows bounced. “Oh.” Jeff frowned. “No, no, that's interesting.” Yancy waved a hand, but traced a few lines on the table with a skinny fingertip. “It sounds as if something inflammable may have been left on the floor deliberately and lit: something that would burn and spread the blaze.”

Jeff's heart squeezed. “That makes sense.” He rubbed his chin and bowed his chin into his palm. “Like gunpowder, or... something like it.” He shook his head, frowning as he thought. “But I would have smelled gun powder.” 

“Yes, that scent is distinct, but it may be something similar.” Yancy, too, rubbed his chin, and Jeff took up his teacup and emptied it. Yancy snapped his fingers. “Ah, perhaps you could try to scrape a sample!”

“Aye.” Jeff lowered his head, thinking again, but somehow, it was becoming harder to focus. Thoughts swirled madly around his mind, dizzying him with the notion – first, that he might have some proof, and second, that someone was taking him seriously! “I'll... I'll try and take some of it up.” He tried to lift his head, but it was too heavy, and that dizzy feeling he got only deepened. Christ, when had the room gotten so warm?

“Oh, dear.” Yancy stood and moved around the table, standing over Jeff where he slouched. “Dear boy, are you alright?” Jeff tried to look up at him, but he found himself seeing double, his vision warping. The Doctor sounded concerned but looked like he was smirking. “The heat must have gotten to you. Come, come.” Jeff found himself being lifted under the arms, forced to a stand, and guided to a sofa in another room, a dark room. The velvet of the couch was slick and cool, and he slumped onto it, his headache throbbing at the same pace as his heartbeat. The Doctor spoke, sounding as if he were very far away, “Rest for a bit, and I'll help you home when you're on your feet again.” Jeff muttered what he hoped was agreement, feeling weak and boneless, and yet deeply relaxed.

He faintly remembered that he hadn't told Yancy about the knife, or the men who'd been stabbed before being burnt, but that thought passed quickly, lost in his own sudden exhaustion. Forget it. Perhaps the fight had come after the fire, or long before the fire. Either way, it was just his place to worry about the fires, and he did not especially feel worried about it in this moment.

He shut his eyes and dreamt of green paisley silk and flowers.

* * *

"Geoffrey? Geoffrey, wake up."

 Oh, when had Julianna come to see Doctor Yancy? Jeff opened his eyes, his vision still blurry and his head still spinning, to see pretty Julianna crouched before them. He granted her a smile.

"Hello, lovely sister-in-law."

"Geoffrey!" Julianna turned pink to the tips of her ears, and she swatted his wrist. "Not for a month yet, and you know it! At least you've got some of your wits about you." She sighed, rising to a stand, and Jeff's vision resolved around her to see he'd somehow gotten home and was sprawled on the linen chaise in their sitting room. Jeff heard Julianna fretting something about 'talking nonsense for the last two hours' as she walked to the stairwell, then called, "David, he woke!"

David shouted back from above: "Is he still drunk?"

"I told you, I smell no liquor on him!" Julianna heaved an exasperated sigh. "He's funny, but at least his fever's gone down."

"Funny, is he? As if being drunk in broad daylight weren’t bad enough!" David tromped down the stairs, big feet heavy and making Jeff's headache throb with every plodding footfall, and David appeared in a dinner jacket and vest, though when Jeff blinked he swore he saw their father.

"You look like Dad," he said aloud. David merely scoffed.

"You look a right mess. Where the hell've you been the last six hours?"

"Six?" Jeff squinted at the old cuckoo clock mounted over David's favorite chair by the hearth. Sure enough, it was late evening, though Jeff could still smell the sweat of the warm day in his clothes. "Was I gone that long?"

"You showed up at home a little while ago," Julianna supplied, to a frustrated grimace from David. "You babbled something, then collapsed here and didn't wake for a while. I was beginning to worry--"

"The daftie's been drinking again. If he knew what was good for him, he'd leave off." David crossed his arms. Irritation slid through Jeff's chest like a knife.

“I wasn't drinking.” Jeff forced himself to sit up, his head sloshing like a ship on a tempest-tossed sea. “I visited this fellow on Market – Doctor Yancy – he gave me some tea and I overheated.”

“Sure.” David sneered, then looped an arm around Julianna's, his expression settling into disappointment. “Look, as long as you're sober in case there's trouble overnight, your choices are yours to make. We've got a meeting to attend.”

“Fine.” Jeff sat forward, rubbing his head. Julianna made a sad little noise, but pulled away from David to smooth his hair back.

“I left you some sausages and potatoes in the pot.” She kissed his forehead. “Chin up and feel better, alright?”

David folded his arms, but his harsh stare was only for Jeff. “Don't mollycoddle the troublemaker.” He took her hand again, then motioned to the table. “Oh, and there was mail for you. Shall we, Miss Newcomb?” He smiled, wanly, then escorted her out. Jeff grimaced as the door shut, then rubbed at where Julianna's kiss still lingered.

Everything felt, somehow, like too much. The sensation of his skin rubbing against the weave of his pant legs, the brightness of the fire in the hearth or the candles on the table, the scratch of his fingernails on his scalp as he shook his hair out, all were more intense than they should have been. He still gathered up a fork, all while intimately aware of every sound or shift around him and nearly jumping at every one, speared a sausage from the pot hung over the hearth, and bit into it, then went to the parcel left on the table. A small box wrapped in green fabric awaited him with an envelope attached. Jeff opened the letter first, but had to shake off the sensation as the ink spun in circles on the page when he first looked. When the words settled on the page, they read:

_“I heard you knock earlier and apologize that I was not well enough to take your visit. My constitution is such that I cannot tolerate such extreme temperatures as today. I hope you have taken care of yourself. With the mercy of a cooler evening, I have taken the liberty of preparing some sugar candy flavored with mint in hopes of cooling you. Please come by again tomorrow. Most sincerely, Aaron.”_

Jeff pulled the ribbon on the parcel open, and a few crystal-looking candy sticks fell out, each the length of a cigarette and twisted like wrought iron. When Jeff picked one up, it looked like it was still twisting and turning in his palm, until he shook his vision clear again. He tucked it into his mouth, and was greeted with a cold sensation, just like Aaron's note suggested, and Jeff closed his eyes and tried to center his thoughts on the chill.

Damn, he must have had one nasty heatstroke.

When he opened his eyes again, however, he noticed that the fabric the candies had been wrapped in was familiar. First, it took him a moment to place it, then he recalled -- the fabric was the same green waistcoat that Aaron had worn on the day they met. Perhaps he had requested spare from the tailor.

... or perhaps that wasn't what Jeff had recognized. Something else hitched in him, and he got the sudden sensation someone had hooked a noose around his neck.

He bolted up the stairs and found his canvas jacket hung on the back of the door, and the scrap of fabric he'd found on the knife still tucked in the pocket. His heart raced and time seemed to slow as he bolted back to the table, lungs in his throat, and planted the two bits of silk side by side. Sure enough, even with the soot and the tug of the blade, the weft hadn't warped. The patterns were identical. The same color, the shapes all the same size. The only difference was that one had been cut deliberately into a neat little square, the other shredded off of the whole.

Jeff couldn't swallow. He couldn't breathe. This had to be Aaron's, he knew, but why had Aaron been in there? Why had there been a knife through it? Why was Aaron in the fire in the first place?

He'd thought it for an instant the day he first saw him, how very strange his appearance in the midst of the night, but what this suggested – he could never have imagined it. "I'm imagining it," he told himself. "It's the heat." He snatched up the torn piece of fabric, head throbbing, pulse echoing it where his fingers curled into his palm, and rubbed his forehead. "Like Keith said. Like David said. You're imagining things that aren't there."

_Are you?_ his own mind answered, and he shuddered back in denial.

It's just the heat, he tried to tell himself again. Christ, he was tired. He needed to rest. No, he needed to think clearly, and clarity would not come.

Jeff dropped the candies and staggered away, his head pounding, confusion and annoyance and a pervasive itch under his skin all warring for his attention. He could run and tell David his suspicions, but would he believe him? Would anyone? Could he believe himself?

Who would believe that the gentle stranger who served little old ladies tea could do what Jeff was imagining? Why would he?

His skin was starting to itch and sweat, his muscles tensing and aching. It took all of his energy to drag himself to his bedroom. He collapsed onto his mattress, bearing back shivers as he tried to rest his eyes, tried to silence the argument between what he knew and what he couldn't believe. He was beginning to feel even sicker. He didn't want to think anymore, not about the fires, not about Aaron's kind green eyes. He wanted to sleep.

Sleep didn't come.

* * *

Jeff still tossed and turned when the fire bell rang, and he flew from his bed as if he'd been prodded with a dagger. He beat David to the bottom of the steps, and answered David's snide remark about him not being hung over for once with a “Shut it, arsehole, we don't have time!” 

He was still sore and aching, head feverish, as he followed his ears through the street towards the tolling of the bell, but the sky was as bright as a sunset already. The flames burned high and bright over what had been a bank. All the old Londoners were standing around wailing about their money, but Jeff shoved his way through, shouting, “KEITH! TELL ME WHERE YOU NEED ME!”

Keith didn't ask about Jeff's foul temper, he just tossed him a bucket. “Wet down the walls to the east! We can't let this spread!”

“Fine!” Jeff raced around the side of the building to the pump, joining the bucket brigade. The sound of the pump grated interminably in his ears, as he impatiently waited for each bucket to pass back and forth, an eye over his shoulder the whole time. The flames were hot and wild, burning higher and brighter by the second. Jeff felt sweat pour down his back, heart racing and anxiety itching his every bone, every joint, but he kept his mind to the task. Put out the fire. Stop the flames from claiming a single thing more. If someone did this for some purpose, any purpose, don't let them have it. Nobody needs to lose anything else.

He'd worry about the rest later.

The flames didn't die for hours, and by the time the embers died at his feet, Jeff could hardly feel his arms any more. He hadn't thrown a single bucket at the bank, just at the walls surrounding it, and just like every other fire he'd seen lately, the building was in charred ruins, the ceiling collapsing in, the windows all shattered. Exhausted and frustrated, Jeff simply threw the bucket down, adding to the clatter that still roared around him as all the spectators complained about the burnt bank, all those wasted notes. “Christ,” he growled. “All they care about is what's theirs, eh?” He kicked the bucket at the wall, fishing for a cigarette in his pocket before marching towards the front of the bank.

“Geoffrey!” David was shouting his name, but Jeff ignored him, fuming down the end of his cigarette as he began to kick at the beams fallen in on the door. David caught his shoulder and forced him to turn, relief plain on his face. “There you are, I hadn't seen you since you dashed ahead!”

Somehow, that annoyed Jeff even more than David's earlier insults. “Fuck off!” He pushed David's hand, irritation jittering down his skin like so many nipping fleas. “Pretend you care, why don't you?”

“Hey!” David's eyebrows bounced towards his hairline, but Jeff shoved him back again and kicked through the broken beam and into the ruins of the bank.

Jeff wasn't interested in the immolated body slumped on the counter, his skin itching with anxiety as he took the ruins in. When he flashed his naphtha lighter around the room, he could see all of the telltale black lines on the ground like overgrown ivy. He knelt got down on hands and knees, before finding some loose debris in the path that was as black as everything around it. Just like when David had tried to rub the marks out, all he got for his efforts was soot on his sleeve. However, he realized it was not just soot, but a granular powder the consistency of fine sugar crystals. Jeff pinched some of it between his hands and sniffed it, only to wrinkle his nose – it was acrid, bitter, like vinegar and ginger root at the same time. It also smelled like nothing one would find in a bank. This was most certainly something someone brought in. He choked off the scent, his nose dripping fiercely until he wiped it clean on his sleeve, then trudged for the exit, where Keith, David, and some of the other volunteers were all waiting. Keith was the first to move towards him.

“Jeff, what were you--”

Jeff found himself out of patience. “It doesn't matter. You won't believe me anyway.” He marched past them, waving a hand. “There's one corpse. Suppose we ought to summon the police for it.” Keith and David both gawked after him, as the other firefighters guffawed amongst themselves.

“First in, first out, ain't he?”

“Your brother's an impetuous one, Shaw!”

Jeff didn't care. He marched away, ignoring all the voices behind him, though they still echoed in his ear and buzzed in his head. The buzzing only seemed to get louder as he walked away, until finally he had to stop and catch his breath under a flickering street lamp.

Once again, he fished out the green silk in his pocket, holding it to the light. He lifted it to his nose, wondering if he could catch the scent of bergamot and tea on it. That, however, only made him think.

Tomorrow, in the light of day and with a clear mind, he would make sense of this.

* * *

Jeff's head felt no clearer in the morning. If anything, he felt worse, nauseous and dizzy. He hadn't been able to stay asleep, only closing his eyes for short stretches and hardly able to dream. When the sun came up in earnest, sleep didn't come at all, replaced by cold sweats and shivers, headaches, and strange flashes of light and dreamlike images that couldn't be there. Rising was a nightmare, but he knew he had to. He would rather be out of the house and far away when David woke. Instead, he washed himself – hands shaking on the cloth – dressed – hands shaking on the buttons – and left, feeling too sick for breakfast. He barely remembered to grab the bit of sooty cloth from his jacket pocket.

 Aaron was visible from the front window, filling sachets of tea from the bins behind his counter. He looked worse for the wear, blue grooves hewn in under his eyes and a grey pallor to his skin. He was also wearing a different waistcoat, Jeff noticed, one embroidered with green diamonds rather than the paisley weave, and a cravat with a pin that matched the pattern. Perhaps it was a new style. Jeff dearly wanted to think so.

Aaron turned when Jeff entered, and greeted him with a fond, albeit weary smile. “I'm glad to see you. Forgive me; I haven't any kettles ready.” 

“I've no appetite for tea,” Jeff retorted without thinking. His stomach roiled at the very thought of sustenance. Aaron, however, seemed taken aback at the edge in Jeff's tone.

“None whatsoever? Oh, my. Are you unwell?” Aaron tentatively extended a hand, hesitated, then moved a strand of Jeff's hair from his forehead. His fingers were smooth and cool to the touch, and though Jeff wanted to take comfort in the sensation, he found himself flinging an arm up to brush Aaron's touch away.

“I'm fine.” He couldn't even muster a shadow of a polite smile. “Really. Just my head. Just the heat.” Part of his mind recognized that Aaron didn't look especially well, either, as he withdrew and turned his back, returning his attention to the tea in the bins with downcast eyes. “I came because I was concerned for you. Must you close your shop for your health often?”

Aaron started almost imperceptibly at this, but he shook his head without turning. Jeff could see every little twitch, almost too aware of his every minute motion as he tried to go about his business. “Yesterday was unfortunately extreme. I was too feverish to work until the sun went down. I'm still not at my best, but my customers expect more of me.” Aaron sighed as he put the lid back on the bin and pivoted around. “I'm glad you came calling. Does this heat bother you, too? I imagine it was worse at home.”

“Home,” Jeff repeated, closing his eyes for a moment and remembering the lush green of the jungle, the broad fields of banana vines and rice paddies. It was too real for a second, then swallowed by the same nagging irritation that made his skin feel too tight. “I can't rightly call it home. I live here now.” He reached into his pocket, feeling the bit of silk there. “Aaron, I want to ask you--”

“I asked you before, though.” Aaron furrowed his brow, looking away again. “If you could go home, would you?”

The irritation that had stewed under Jeff's skin burst through to the surface. “I just said, it ain't home!” He slammed his palm on the counter, and Aaron jumped. “I hated India! I hated my aunt and uncle and being ignored and forgotten about in the middle of nowhere!”

“But you--”

“I loved my parents. I loved living with them.” Jeff gritted his teeth. “But they died of cholera, and no amount of fucking turmeric and cinnamon helped them!” He kicked Aaron's counter. “You want to know what I'd go back to? Relatives who hated me! They shunted me off to a servant who only cared for me because she had to! David at least passed for family, but I looked nothing like them, and they stripped him from me just so I'd be completely alone!” He strained for breath as Aaron, wide-eyed, reached for him again, but Jeff slapped him back. “No, damn you, you want to know what I think of India? Fuck India! I've got nothing there! My uncle shipped me off here the second I was old enough for it and sold my father's land out from under me, and I didn't have a damn choice in any of it! I'd be fucking rudderless! All I have is a paltry pile of silver and a _proper English education_ that I'm not smart enough to do a thing with!”

Aaron was pale now. “Come, is it so bad? You have your half-brother--”

“Half?! He's my brother, everyone always assumes I'm the bastard!” Jeff tore at his hair, a white-knuckled fist dug into his scalp. “He looks like Father. Father was British. I look like Mother. Mother was the half-Indian daughter of a general. I remember how much they loved that each of them could point to one of us and say, 'this one's mine.' They loved each other and they were happy, even if her skirts were spat on by his family.” He laughed weakly. “And then they died and I was alone. Imagine, being left to my father's sister and her husband, having the savage beaten out of you for ten years, being educated like they were training a monkey, and still not being British enough not to get a second look in the streets. If not worse.” He drew himself up, leaning over Aaron. “Even after doing my best to make something of myself, I'm naught but a stain.” Aaron looked rightfully scolded. Good. Jeff wanted him to be upset. “Now, stop turning things about on me and answer me straight!”

He yanked the silk from his pocket, brandishing it like a bullfighter with a flag. “This is yours. I found it in the debris from one of the fires. With a knife through it.” It was not a question, and Aaron didn't answer it but for a widening of his eyes and a soft intake of breath. “You don't deny it, either.” Jeff shook the ragged bit of silk at him. “Why were you in there? It was a bar. Do you drink? Do you game?”

“It's a coincidence, and a curious one, but surely there are other men who wear that same style.”

“You're not wearing it today.” Jeff snapped a hand out and tugged at Aaron's collar. Aaron pushed his hand off.

“I must launder it some time – Graces, Geoffrey, have you been drinking?” Aaron took a step back, but Jeff was unfazed.

“You tore it to bits and packaged candy in it, Christ, admit it! You didn't want evidence that you owned it, is that it?” Jeff was grinding his teeth, his skin still itching and crawling even as Aaron tried to back away. “You were at every fire but the one where I found this, and you were obviously here! This is yours! Admit it!” Jeff hooked onto Aaron's collar again, and tore his cravat loose. Jeff staggered back with the momentum, as Aaron wheezed and grabbed at his throat. Jeff caught a glimpse of black and blue bruises ringing Aaron's throat, but as he lifted his hands towards him, concern rearing its head up in his breast, but then, he caught a whiff of something familiar.

Like vinegar. Acrid and bitter. Implacable, but unmistakable.  Aaron's cravat reeked of it.

“This smell.” Jeff lifted the cravat to his nose, inhaling, and found himself dizzied from the odor. “It's the stuff that gets spread all over the ground. And you...” Jeff shook the cravat at Aaron. “You have it all over you.” His throat tightened, but he escalated to a shout: “The tea! It's a cover! You use the scent of it to cover this all over you, but you're not the only one with a nose, you bloody pig!”

Aaron was grabbing at his throat, eyes wide with apoplexy, but his voice was deadly calm. “You don't know how ridiculous you sound.”

“You're the ridiculous one! You're the one setting fires!” Jeff threw Aaron's cravat down like a gentleman might demand a duel, but something shifted in Aaron's eyes, a subtle narrowing, a shift of the lips, and suddenly, he was the kind of gentleman who would accept, or worse.

Aaron seized Jeff by the shoulders and pulled him close, whispering with all the subtle danger of a snake sliding through long grass, “And thank goodness you're there to put them out.”

Jeff shivered, because he suddenly got the idea he was facing someone very different. “You mean you...”

“You're clever. I had thought you might be.” Aaron slipped on a smirk, and Jeff felt something coil around him like a snake around a mouse.

“Then you admit it.”

“Is there a point in denying it? You have proof enough.” Aaron released Jeff's shoulders and circled around the counter, a swagger in his step. Jeff swallowed twice. He had to be wrong, everyone told him so, there had to be something he'd done wrong.

“Then – the stuff on the ground –”

“Propellant. Yes.”

Jeff winced as Aaron halted in front of him, those green eyes glinting with danger and something else in the dim light of the shot. “Do you make it?”

“I do.” Aaron curled his hand around Jeff's suspender strap. “In the basement, after hours. I haven't slept a full night in ages, but there's just so much work to do.” His grip tightened, and Jeff felt all the more like a mouse in a boa constrictor's coil. Aaron advanced a step, and Jeff retreated. “I have targets to select, preparations to make, and then to stand back and watch the burn. I don't sleep much, Geoffrey, but graces, is it worth the trouble. I didn't worry about you when you first approached me, but I see now that you were more clever than I could have guessed.” His closed hand slid up Jeff's chest, then unfurled to drag thin lines up his breastbone and neck and fastened on his chin. “You saw through me.” Jeff's pulse sped up as Aaron's  fingernails dug in on the tender skin of his neck, just a little, and Aaron whispered: “But who will believe you?”

Jeff's heart leapt into his throat when Aaron pushed him back, and he only barely caught himself from stumbling, even as Aaron advanced again with the same confidence as someone cornering a deer with a rifle in hand. “Perhaps you shouldn't be around me. I'm very dangerous.” Aaron glowered at him without dropping his smirk, and Jeff felt the trails of his fingers where they'd been on his chest weave around and constrict his heart like ivy, but just as Jeff swore Aaron was about to reach into his chest and tear it out, he halted, folding his arms and digging his heels in. “London is no place for someone as naïve as you. You may have nothing in India, but it's more than you have here. Go home.”

Jeff knew not what else to do but to scramble a hasty about face and bolt for the door, then the street, then as far and as fast as his feet could carry him. He was terrified, and had good reason to be. Some part of him hadn't wanted to believe there was an arsonist, and even now that he knew, he knew that Aaron was right: nobody would believe him.

Except maybe one.

Jeff accomplished the run through to Market Avenue faster than he thought he could, and stumbled to a stop at Doctor Yancy's door. His clenched fist trembled as he pounded it on the door. Yancy appeared shortly and opened it, ushering him in. “Come in, come in! My, you look like the Devil himself chased you here!”

“Chisholm!” Jeff ran in and threw the door shut. “I figured it out. That stuff, the powder, Chisholm makes it and covers the scent of it with the tea he sells, and--!”

“Ah, is that who you think has done it? The gentleman from the tea shop?” Yancy furrowed his brow and ushered him up the stairs to his living space again. “I see, I see. Alright, don't you worry.” He clamped both hands on Jeff's arms as he escorted him, and Jeff, breathless and boneless, didn't resist, letting himself be taken. “If that's so, he'll be coming for you.” Jeff nearly choked on his saliva at that, even as Yancy all but pushed him into a chair, and he hung his head as Yancy paced a circle around him. “You can stay here, and I'll speak to the police.” Then, he bent over, his face too close to Jeff's. “But clearly you're shaken, aren't you? Do you feel unwell?”

Jeff found himself nodding, and Yancy clicked his tongue. “Lucky you came when you did.” He turned, and Jeff mopped the sweat coating his brow on the back of his sleeve. Only now did he realize that his hands were shaking worse than ever, and his whole body ached. “I've some medicine for what ails you,” Yancy announced, and he set a cup of tea with a spoon swirling in the cup on the table in front of him. It was the same as the day before, with that heady floral scent, but the second Jeff took it in, he _craved._ He drank it quickly, and felt Yancy running a soothing hand down his back. “There, now, see? Everything's alright now. Everything is going to be alright.”

Jeff couldn't believe those words. Someone he'd thought was a friend had turned out to be more dangerous than he could imagine. No wonder the boy and the priest had raised eyebrows at him. Even so, as the tea sank down his throat, his thoughts of Aaron, of the others, of the fire, began to clear from his memory, allowing him to only remember Aaron's fond smile, his soft palms, his acceptance. Christ, he would miss that. He swallowed again, then saw Yancy's hand extend in front of him, holding a precariously-rolled cigarette.

“Care for a smoke?”

“Sure.” Jeff accepted it, his hand moving slowly as he took it into his palm, struck a flame on his lighter, fumbled it, but managed to get the cigarette to his mouth. Even the tobacco smelled sweeter, but when he bent to pick up his lighter, he only realized that it was still lit when his thumb passed through the flame.

The moment he realized he hadn't experienced the pain was when he began to worry. He closed his lighter to snuff the flame and stared at it for a moment, but it looked hazy, as if it were wavering in his vision, and then he looked at his thumb. He could see the red lick where the had crossed over the pad of the digit, but he couldn't feel it. He tried to remember his fear from a scant moment before, the gut-wrenching horror of finding out his new friend was a serial arsonist with multiple corpses in his wake, but it didn't come. It simply couldn't. That was wrong.

“You gave me something?” Jeff tried to look around for the doctor, but his chair felt like it was bobbing on an ocean under him. Dr. Yancy was standing a few feet away, hands folded behind his back, but Jeff was seeing sparks of light and glowing rings around him.

“Don't worry. Relax.”

The doctor wasn't moving, but Jeff's vision swam around him. “Feel funny,” he muttered, and Yancy chuckled.

“It's just the opium, dear boy.”

Something in Jeff turned recognition – he'd heard of opium. Of the war fought because Britain had imported it to China against their laws, of the Chinamen laid low in torpor out of need for it, of the new hobby of the wealthy. Despite the confusion whirling under his muted senses, all he could do was repeat, “Opium?”

“Yes, my boy; grown in India! Imported! Some of the finest medicine coming from the mystic East, you see.” Charles Yancy chortled merrily as he approached Jeff again. “Fantastic stuff, it is, really chases one's worries and pain away. The only trouble is, once you've shaken your worries, you must keep taking it to keep them from returning, you see.” He patted Jeff's head, then threaded his fingers into his hair and tipped him back by his scalp. “And I was most generous with my free sample, so of course you'd want more sooner.” Jeff's vision was starting to cloud over completely, but Yancy's smirk was suddenly more vicious than ever. Even so, he was too weak to even lift a hand in his own defense as the doctor roughly dragged his fingers through his hair. “Not to worry, though; I'll ensure you've got enough to last you the rest of your life.”

Jeff tried to stand, wanting to run, but the moment he tried, his head spun, his legs gave out from under him, and he collapsed. Already, he was hallucinating things that weren't there, this time demonic hands reaching up from the floor and dragging him down, and his vision went black just as he felt the doctor's narrow fingers close around the nape of his neck.

* * *

Jeff was not certain how long he'd been unaware this time. He felt grit under his eyelids and under his head, dust ground into his hair, and when he tried to sit up, his head was immensely heavy. He pushed himself to sit up with his hands, feeling dirt ground into the fabric under his palms, and blinked his vision clear. He was in a dim room he didn't recognize, on a filthy sofa, and no amount of rubbing at his face was clearing the haze away. Memories floated back in like corpses being sent down a river: he'd been fed opium. The noises from above suggested he might be in the Doctor's basement, the dark room he'd only wondered at. There were signs that there had been others here before him, dropped pipes, cigarette butts, emptied bottles and pint glasses, hookahs, and the stains and stench of spilled puddles of liquor.

An opium den. Jeff had only heard soft whispers, rumors, things unspoken in polite society, but it was before him in hellish tableau and too real.

He tried to stand, but his head felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton, and his legs were as good as limp greens. Still, he valiantly staggered a few steps forward, trying to think.

Thought failed. 

Jeff smelled vinegar. No, something else. Acrid. Bitter. Implacable. Impossible.

“Aaron?” The word escaped him though he hadn't meant to let it, let loose from the place in his soul that wanted Aaron's smile to have been real, his friendship, valid.

The only answer was a shadow at the top of the stairs, the line of a sleek silhouette, then a familiar shadow of a man's narrow shoulders and back. Aaron, his shirtsleeves rolled and his arms and hands painted with black soot to the elbow, descended, with the dim light from above glinting in his eyes. He blinked behind his dusty glasses a few times as his eyes adjusted to the light, and as his focus settled on Jeff. Jeff nearly jumped at his narrow-eyed glower, the frown that creased his face, and that same deadly whisper: “You're not supposed to be here.”

“Aaron, I –”

“You're supposed to be outside.” Jeff's mind and vision cleared enough to see that Aaron wasn't angry, that his mouth was twitching at the corners and his brow was wrought with horror. He was devastated. “You're supposed to be stopping me.”

Something panged in Jeff's chest, and he stretched a hand out as if to beg for something he couldn't even voice, but just as he swore Aaron was about to catch him up, someone hooked an arm around his neck, and as hard as he struggled, he was too weak to fight it off.

“Now, now,” Doctor Yancy crooned past his ear. “Let's not be hasty. He needs me, Mister Chisholm.”

Aaron's eyes widened, then narrowed to angry slits. “I had hoped you would be here.” His gaze flickered back to Jeff, as Jeff stomped and twisted, trying to get himself loose, but his every swing was as weak as an infant swatting at toys from his pram. Aaron's expression wobbled towards pity for a split second, but he shifted back into his harder mien in a snap. “He has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, but doesn't he? After all, you like him, and you're so very bad at taking care of the things you like.” Yancy smirked against Jeff's neck, and Jeff found himself petrified in place. “It's a shame you're so very good at causing pain, because the moment my friends and associates began to die, I saw your nasty fingers all over it. My business partners immolate, and you stroll away at sunrise, casual as you please.”

“Criminals and murderers, all.” Aaron was still looking at Jeff more than Yancy. Yancy tutted him.

“Then why were they not arrested? Vigilantism doesn't grant you immunity, especially when you had no proof of a crime committed.” Yancy's grip around Jeff's neck tightened, and he panted weakly and tried to force himself loose. Yancy merely snatched him by his ponytail and held him fast twice over. “But then I see you with this one. You like him, do you? I did too, I admit.” His grip slid, and he ran his fingers through Jeff's hair. “Not nearly so intriguing as the girl --” Aaron's breath hitched loudly in the silent room – “But a few too-eager gulps of opium tea evens the score quickly.”

Aaron's throat worked for a moment behind his stoic expression. “Then you've drugged him.”

“I had to help him chase his anxieties somehow. The poor boy was a nervous wreck over the fires. Over you.” Jeff's perception was still muddled to the point where Yancy's fingers in his hair were welcome, but Aaron's faintly pained look came through clearly and stung. “But the medicine does have its unfortunate downsides, does it not? He needs it. Surely, we can come to some arrangement.” Jeff flinched when Yancy closed his fingers in his hair again. “You can walk away and leave me be, I'll sweep my floor of your trouble, and I'll ensure your friend receives his daily dose and continues to function as the same do-nothing as he was when you met him.”

“You...” Aaron's breath was a death rattle. Yancy clicked his tongue.

“I'm doing nothing illegal, after all, surely not deserving of execution at _your_ hands, of all things. I merely wish to run my business.”

Aaron shook his head slightly, his fingers trembled at his sides, and Jeff could tell his facade was slipping. “You've hurt so many.”

Yancy merely clicked his tongue and tsked him, dragging Jeff ever closer to him. “Now now, they were in no pain under my care. As you well know, they're only harmed when they leave. You know what happens when you forcibly separate me from my patient.” He ran his hand down Jeff's side like an auctioneer displaying the muscle on a horse. “This one really needs me, you see. If you force us apart, then just whose death warrant will you sign, Master Executioner? The choice is yours.” Jeff cringed, because now Yancy removed a hand from him and was extending a hand to Aaron, and Aaron looked ready to take it.

Jeff had no time to think. This choice was about his life. He was going to make it for himself.

He got his hand loose and worked it into his back pocket, then caught Aaron's eye and whispered, “Cover your nose and mouth.” Yancy, above him, startled, but Jeff got his naphtha lighter out, flicked the flame, and threw it behind Aaron. Yancy gasped, and Jeff took advantage of his surprise to break free and run, hooking Aaron by the arm and dragging him with him.

The flame from the lighter caught the propellant lining the stairs just as Jeff reached them, but Aaron stopped him right as it caught and exploded in the most glorious way. The fire traveled up the path as if it had left a trail, but sparks flew in its wake in explosions like leaves springing off of a grapevine, spreading the fire wider, higher, hotter. Jeff gaped in horror, and Aaron, too, but Jeff had faced flames before. He yanked his shirt off and pressed it over Aaron's mouth, then hustled him up the stairs, into the shop.

Yancy's store was already ablaze, but Jeff yanked Aaron low to the ground, shouting to be heard: “The smoke rises, don't breathe it in! Stay low and crawl for the door!”  Aaron nodded, clutching Jeff's shirt to his face, but as he made to escape, Jeff squinted around the room. Aaron yanked his pant leg.

“You're not staying!”

Jeff shook his head. “I'm going to destroy every drop of opium in this place.”

Aaron stared at him as if he were the Metatron himself descended from on high, then tugged his pant leg again, insistently. “I've spread the fuel everywhere. This building will not last, nor anything in it. We should leave--”

There was a horrifying crack from above, and both Aaron and Jeff ducked and covered as one of the ceiling beams came loose and came crashing down between them and the door. Jeff and Aaron both gawked in horror, until a horrid noise came from behind them: Yancy emerging at the top of the stairs, panting and bellowing with flames catching on his coat.

Aaron nudged Jeff's side. “Make us an escape. We're going to live.” Then, he lunged at Yancy, tackling him to the ground.

Jeff didn't need to be told twice. He tried to ignore everything, the tussle behind him as Yancy and Aaron wrestled, the flames raging higher and hotter around him, the distant bells and the shouting voices. He first went to the beam, trying to push it, but it was no use – he was still too weak, and even if he were strong enough, he wouldn't be able to budge this by himself. However, he spotted a window that he might be able to get to. He crawled down on the ground again, around the tables and shelves that filled the room, thinking as quickly as he could. Inspiration struck, and he seized one of the boxes of snake oil sitting on the shelves. He might not be able to make a fist hard enough to strike, but the bottles were already solid.

He got close to the window, wound up, and pitched a bottle at it. The window shuddered at the impact, but the bottle shattered, splashing green liquid highlighted sickly bright in the flames. Jeff's chest ached, and he threw another bottle as hard as he could. To his surprise, the window suddenly shattered, one pane at a time, and Jeff could have sworn he heard gunfire before each pane broke. Someone else was shouting now:  
  
“AARON! GET OUT!”

The priest?!

Then, “I'm going in!”

Gallagher, it had to be! Jeff gathered his wits and shouted back, “Stay where you are! I'll get him out!” He emptied the box of the rest of the bottles and smashed it against the bracing left behind around the panes. Most of them broke, but Gallagher shouted back:

“I've got a stick, I'll get the window broke, get Aaron!”

Jeff didn't need to be told twice. He crawled around to see that Yancy had Aaron pinned by his shoulders, snarling and half-sobbing as he throttled him against the ground:

“You, you weak bastard, you would damn yourself all because of a stupid, stupid girl!”

Jeff found he didn't care why Aaron was doing what he'd done. It was his choice to make, and he got the feeling he had a damn good reason. Instead, Jeff would do what any friend would do. He yanked the ribbon from his hair and looped it around Yancy's neck.

Jeff had tired of feeling like he couldn't breathe, it was time to return the favor.

He found the strength somewhere in him to yank as hard as he could as Yancy choked through his constricted windpipe, releasing Aaron as Jeff pulled him back, and Aaron caught his breath as Jeff eased his body weight back, straightening Yancy out and pulling him tighter. Then, Aaron slid out from under Yancy, got a knee under him to brace himself, and punched Yancy in the gut as hard as he could. Yancy made a dull noise and went limp under Jeff, and Aaron grabbed Jeff's arm.

“Drop him, he won't be moving, we have to go!”

Jeff didn't have to be told twice. He forced Aaron to wrap his shirt around his face and hurried him through the burning room. He kept his head up to guide them both around the obstacles as quick as they could both move, then got down in front of the window and laced his fingers into a secure hold. “I'll boost you out!”

Aaron stepped on Jeff's laced hands, and Jeff lifted him up to the sill, over and through. Jeff stood to lift him, though his knees shook under the weight, and once Aaron was out, Aaron thrust his hand back through. "Take hold!"

Jeff took his hand and tried to work himself up over the wall, but dizziness swelled through him. He tried to get a breath but couldn't, the air too thick with smoke. His chest felt dense and full, he couldn't exhale, couldn't inhale, couldn't do anything but listen to Aaron calling his name and waving his hand through the window. He grabbed hold and tried to get out through the window one more time, holding on to the last thread he had and hoping he could trust Aaron this far.

Then, he went under like he'd been caught in the wake of a sinking ship.

* * *

"... free..."

Was this what the bottom of the ocean looked like? This dark, this empty? Jeff had fancied jumping off the boat that had carried him to England, but he knew he couldn't swim. Was he drowning? 

"Geoffrey..."

Everything was black around the edges, like he was looking up through a tunnel of dim light. Aaron was over him, and he could feel two hands pressed in a cross over his chest. His voice crackled in and out of Jeff's awareness like music playing in another room:

"Breathe ... me, I know you … please, breathe." The hands on his chest pressed harder. Jeff tried to open his mouth but could only swallow. Cold water flooded his senses -- someone was pouring it on his arms and hands.

David was screaming incoherently in a panic somewhere nearby. Someone – gruff, monotonous, possibly angry – was speaking: "He and Aaron ... together ... got Aaron out ... inhaled smoke..."

Oh, was that all? Jeff blinked again, the hands on his chest pressed, and everything suddenly became louder and brighter. He could see the fire, still blazing not ten meters away from where he lay, feel the mounds of stones under his back, see Gallagher on his knees, pouring water on his arms and whispering how his skin was redder than his hair, see Aaron above him, mouth moving quickly but only snippets of his speech getting through Jeff's ears, pressing on his chest. Then, he tipped his head back and tried to push the smoke from his lungs. Jeff exhaled as hard as he could, and finally got an inhale. Only now could he fully hear Aaron:

"Stay with me, stay with me, you can do it, breathe, please, breathe..."

Jeff exhaled, then sucked in another gulp of cool night air. London had never tasted so sweet. Aaron's face brightened with encouragement, and Jeff licked his parched lips and forced air out in a rasp that was nearly a word: "Aaron."

"Yes!" Aaron clasped his hands over Jeff's heart, elated and excited, but Jeff had to force himself to get a little more air in, just so he could speak:

"We got it, did we? Every last drop?"

Aaron's expression fell, joy muted by the dark reminder. He closed a hand around Jeff's. "It's burning now, and the foul doctor who delivered that medicine, too."

"Good. Fuck this place too, then." He flicked his hand at the sky, wheezed for breath again, then closed his eyes.

The darkness was cool and inviting.

* * *

He must have been tired. He couldn't imagine any other reason for his eyes to be so crusted over that they were nearly impossible to open. However, someone was touching his lips, so he had to find out who.

His vision was blurry, but the dark hair and the deep green color told him all he needed to know. Warmth bloomed through him, especially when something sweet touched his tongue. 

“Aaron,” he murmured, but his mouth felt like it was full of marbles. He could tell he was laying down again and on something very soft now, though the ceiling was unfamiliar. Very pretty, at least.

“Shh.” Aaron sounded like he was speaking from far away, even though he was soothing Jeff's mouth shut again. Jeff tried to reach for him, but noticed that his fingers and arm muscles felt stiff, and when he looked, he could see that he was bandaged up past his elbow and under his sleeve. What little of his skin he could see was bright pink, and when Jeff tried to move his fingers, they ached, until Aaron closed his fingers around them. “Geoffrey, you're hurt.”

“You can make me better,” he mumbled stupidly. Something was telling him that maybe he should have been more worried, that he had much more to say, but he hadn't the fortitude to dig any deeper. Aaron merely smiled a little, though Jeff's vision was still blurry.

“You don't recall, do you?” He ran his fingers through Jeff's hair. “You probably will when you're better. You'll regret me, then.” His hand slid down to Jeff's arm, then laced between his fingers. Jeff yawped silently as the taut skin stretched, but Aaron gave his palm a quick squeeze. “I'm sorry I tried to frighten you off. I had only thought you'd be safer if you were as far away from me as you could get. I'm afraid I like you just too much to see you harmed.”

That made the warmth flowing through Jeff only spread. “I like you too, mate. I... I shouted at you, didn't I?” The memory was faint, but Jeff remembered Aaron's upset. “I didn't...”

“Shh.” Aaron closed his hand over Jeff's again. “Rest. You're still hurt. We can talk about everything when your mind is a little clearer.” Aaron rested his hands on Jeff's shoulders, pushing him back down into the mattress he was on. Jeff couldn't be sure what he meant, but as he tried to reach for Aaron again, his vision went out of focus, everything both fuzzy and far too bright.

The last sensation he could truly place was of Aaron's dry lips brushing against his forehead in a gentle kiss. It was oh, so nice, and then everything greyed out again, leaving that the last thread he had to hold on to for what felt like a long time.

When he woke again, the room was dim, his head was throbbing, and someone was rubbing his forehead this time. He squinted an eye open, only to find his vision much clearer and that David was sitting beside him. He still wasn't in his own bed, but he could make out the ornate red and gold trim in the vaulted ceilings now, and David being in this strange place only redoubled his confusion. “What're you doing here?”

David pursed his lips, then planted his hand on Jeff's head and tousled his hair. “Making sure my baby brother's recovering well. The Lady Brunswick invited me to her estate personally, the least I could do--”

“Lady Brunswick?” Jeff pushed David's hand off and sat up, grimacing as his bones creaked against the soft linen of the bed he was laid in. “Estate? David, what in God's name are you on about?”

David edged back in his chair, his gaze running over Jeff from toe to tip, but he spoke after a moment. “Lady Katherine Brunswick, of the House Brunswick. She's a distant cousin to Her Majesty, and apparently a personal friend of one Mister Aaron Chisholm, that new friend of yours. She had you brought here from London after hearing you saved his life, in hopes you could recover in the fresh country air easier. You've been sleeping in one of her guest rooms for the past two days, as we all hoped upon hope that you'd fully wake.” David paused. “You were stupid, you know.”

Jeff felt hot under the collar. “Damn it all, David--!”

“You did everything you could to save him with no mind for yourself.” David shook his head. “You know, I worry about you a lot, but if you're noble enough to put your life on the line for a fellow like you did...” He paused, his chin sinking. “You've proven yourself enough. You don't have to anymore.”

Jeff's chest squeezed, but before he could say a word more, the door opened and Keith peered in. Jeff was about to ask when he was doing here, but the foreboding look that crossed his regal features stilled any question he might have had. David turned when Keith entered, and a wan smile flickered across his face. “Keith.” He rose, and Keith shut the door behind him.

“I see he's awake. Has there been any word from Julianna?” He pursed his lips briefly, his gaze flicking to Jeff again. David shook his head.

“We spoke this morning last, but it seems everything's alright.” He spoke a little softer, but in the silent room, Jeff still heard him clearly: “She still doesn't know.”

“I think she knows enough, but not enough to do her harm. I intend to keep it that way. The less she knows, the less danger there is.” Keith glanced to Jeff again. “As proven. Milady's estate steward, Mister Johnson, can arrange a carriage for you if you wish to return home.”

“But – Geoffrey...”

“He'll be looked after, I assure you.” Keith patted David's shoulders, and spoke a touch louder, “I've got to debrief him. He's a step too deep already. You can still walk away, and I beg of you to take that opportunity.”

David stared at Keith with a mixture of reverence and regret, before sighing and turning back to Jeff. “I'll come to check on you again soon. You're owed a full explanation. Keith is here to give it.”

Jeff frowned as he tried to think that through. He knew Aaron had said he would explain, but why was Keith the one coming in with it? What the hell did he mean, “too deep?” All he could do was shake his aching head and mutter a farewell, until the door shut. Keith stepped through the dim shaft of light from outside and into the cool shadow where Jeff was situated in bed, then crossed his arms and took him in. Jeff stared right back.

Jeff and Keith stared each other down for what felt like a few minutes, Jeff bringing his legs under him so he could sit, and Keith studying Jeff with a plain scowl. Finally, Keith heaved a sigh and said, “Mark me.”

“Mark what?” Jeff scowled. “You ain't said nothing.”

Keith snorted and moved to unbutton his collar. “No, it's a code phrase. One you haven't been taught yet.” He folded his collar down, revealing a crest of a snake looping around a flower tattooed on his neck in black ink. Jeff's eyes widened – he'd not known Keith had a tattoo, let alone such a strange one. “You see,” Keith continued, as he buttoned his collar again, “You have stumbled onto Her Majesty's Personal Volunteer Fire Department.”

Jeff's frown furrowed only deeper. “The Metropolitan Fire Department--”

“-- Puts out fires.” Keith grimaced, paling under his olive complexion. “The Volunteer Fire Department sets them, at Her Majesty's behest. They work under the personal protection of Her Majesty, whose interests in this matter are presently represented by her cousin, Milady Brunswick.”

Jeff faintly recalled Aaron mentioning that he'd served tea to royalty, to a distant cousin of the Queen. Damn, had he been dropping hints all along? “But why are they...” He trailed off as he thought again. “What are they burning?”

“Whatever should please Her Majesty that it be burnt.” Keith sighed and sat down beside Jeff, looking incredibly weary and much older all of a sudden. “You happened across one of their fiercer operations: specifically, the eradication of opium predation, those who intentionally create dependence to profit off of the weak.”

Jeff inhaled sharply. “So, then, all those fires--”

“I had been warned they would be working in our department's area. That's why I was brought into the loop.” Keith hung his head. “I only told David that some of the fires would be intentional, just so I could warn him if I knew one was coming, but I am otherwise sworn to secrecy. Opium may not be illegal, but only because Parliament does not yet see the danger in it. Her Majesty, however, is loathe of it. You've taken it. You've felt its effects.”

Jeff swallowed. “I can hardly remember it; it's bliss for a moment, but then when it's gone, everything nags at me.” He tugged at his own skin for emphasis. “Everything makes me angry. It's... it's awful.”

Keith nodded sagely, patting Jeff's arm. “And the longer you're off it, the worse it gets, especially when you take a large dose. Mister Chisholm can tell you more about that. However, you ended up at the epicenter of the operation when you inadvertently tipped Doctor Yancy off.” Keith smirked a little, looking proud despite himself. “Bright lad, but the subterfuge was intentional. The operation had been weeding out his associates, his launderers, his bankers, those who worked for him and helped sell his wares. He was the top of the food chain.”

Guilt panged Jeff's chest. “And Aaron was going to take him out, is that it?” Keith nodded, and Jeff winced. “So I damn near fucked it up, did I?”

“Don't think of it that way. Doctor Yancy had a … history with Mister Chisholm.” Keith's eyes flicked down. “In all likelihood, had Yancy not pinned you for someone he could use to manipulate Aaron, he would have found another way, and you wouldn't have been there to help him. You saved his life, and if what Aaron says is correct, you were the one who put a very dangerous man to an end.” Keith looked hard into Jeff's face. “After all, you lit the last flame.”

Jeff blanched, and he found himself patting at his pockets for his lighter. Sure enough, it was gone, and likely left gleaming in the bottom of a pile of rubble. “I did, didn't I?” He laughed a little wildly and threaded his fingers into his hair. “I'm the arsonist now.”

Keith chuckled, though he kept his gaze low, and slid a hand up Jeff's back. “I suppose you are.” Then, he set Jeff with a firm look. “But because you've gotten involved, you've got a difficult choice to make...”

* * *

Head steward Johnson, a hoary fellow with wrinkles on his brow and exasperation plain in his voice, brought Jeff a fresh set of clothes after Keith left. Jeff didn't have much more for him than a tight-lipped smile as Keith's words still rattled around his head, even as Johnson helped him into his shirt.

“Milady,” Johnson intoned as he fastened Jeff's collar button, “will see you in her drawing room.” He studied Jeff with both suspicion and a small, admiring smile, as Jeff dusted his hair off of his shoulders, then reached for the ribbon that had been in his pocket. Failing to find it, Jeff merely tucked it behind his ears and gave Johnson a thorough once-over.

“Your Lady, is she, er, nice?”

For a split second, Johnson pulled a face like he'd tasted something sweet and sour at the same time. He quickly cleared his throat and returned his expression to neutrality.

“Milady is the portrait of divine grace, but we do well to remember that the divine work in mysterious ways.” He lifted Jeff's morning coat (and Jeff couldn't help but notice that a hand other than Julianna's had mended the missing button), and Jeff let him work it up his shoulders. Johnson stepped back and examined him for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, you'll do. If Master Shaw would step this way?” He opened the door, and Jeff stepped out. 

Lady Brunswick's summer manor, as Jeff was presuming it was, was airy and bright, and the hallway was lined on one side with windows, yet despite the bright sunlight, the air inside was cool and breezy. The opposite wall, however, was decorated with ornate portraits in an unfamiliar style, watercolors on parchment depicting faraway vistas of mountains and lakes, broad-winged birds and women in strange dresses. Johnson led Jeff down past the portraits, but seemed to notice Jeff examining them. “Did Master Mannsford inform you of the source of Milady's passions?”

“Only that this entire organization was hers.” Jeff didn't tear his eyes from the portraits, pausing at an ink drawing of what seemed to be a holy monk bearing a staff and borne by three monstrous retainers. “Some sort of mission from God, is it?”

Johnson laughed. “No, no. I see you are enjoying Milady's collection. She found these lovely pieces during her travels through China as a tourist.”

“That far East?” Jeff raised an eyebrow, and Johnson nodded, but motioned for Jeff to continue walking.

“Milady wishes to see as much of the world as she reasonably can. She performs charitable acts, to the best of her ability, and what caught her eye when she traveled China was the scourge of opium that haunted their working class.” Johnson heaved a sigh. “She was loathe of it, especially because opium was introduced by the British deliberately. When she returned home and saw a similar poison taking root in London, she was determined to suppress it by any means possible. With her cousin, Her Majesty's blessing, she began to root out opium sellers where they slept.”

“Aye.” Jeff nodded, and Johnson examined him again as he subconsciously rubbed the back of his neck.

“Do you feel well, Master Shaw?”

Jeff laughed a little, his voice shaking in his throat. “A touch nervous, I suppose.”

“I see.” Johnson halted in place and reached for his front pocket, then hesitated. “Er, I was instructed, if you began to show symptoms of … Does your head ache? Are you otherwise calm? Are you nauseous?”

“I told you, sir, just nervous.”

“Ah, good, good.” Johnson smiled with relief and motioned to one of the doors. "Milady will be with you presently. Won't you kindly wait? I believe there's tea." He pushed and held the door for Jeff, and he stepped through only to be completely unsurprised.

Gallagher was perched on a tufted footstool nearest a tray of tartlets, looking each of them over and concealing his selections in his palm. Father Glenn was pacing by the windows, pipe to his lips. Keith was hunched over in a dense leather armchair, glowering at Glenn, and of course, Aaron was pouring tea into a cup.

"Earl Grey, as ever?" Aaron offered him the saucer, and Jeff merely smirked.

"You know me, eh?" He took the saucer, then looked from eye to eye. Even though Glenn and Gallagher were pretending not to see him, he could feel them observing him. Waiting for what he was going to do. Jeff took a swig of his tea, set the saucer on the buffet table, and set his hands on his hips. "Mark me, quite a motley crew here, ain't it?"

In unison, every other man in the room shifted, Glenn to adjust his hat, Gallagher with a closed fist to his breastbone, Keith rubbing his shoulder, and Aaron's hand over his left breast, and each of their voices answered: "By God and Her Majesty, yes."

Gallagher, however, laughed in the wake of it: "Queer when we all do it, ain't it?" He tucked one of the tarts into his mouth, then faced Jeff and said (crumbs notwithstanding), "Guess you know now, eh?"

Jeff pursed his lips. "Each of you said it to me at some point in the last week. I really should've figured that something was wrong."

Glenn scoffed. "No, the point of the phrase is that it's something that sounds natural in conversation. The specific answer is what we seek. Because you were close to Aaron, I checked if you were marked."

"I did the same!" Gallagher swallowed hard, then licked his lips and grinned. "Had to be sure, mate. You were awful close, too! It's right lucky you didn't pin us sooner."

Glenn shook his head, disgust plain in his sour expression. "If someone like that can make us in less than a week, then we've got a lot of work to do on our subterfuge."

"Right." Jeff crossed the room to Gallagher first. "Let's see it."

Gallagher giggled, but rolled up the bottom of his shirt to show the snake wrapped around a flower tattooed over his navel. "Father Glenn said I always did think with me stomach, eh?" He tucked his shirt back in slipshod and tapped his forehead. "I'd have it here if I could, but it's too obvious. I'm the eyes, see? I can play off being anywhere I so please as Father Glenn's errand boy, and since nobody thinks much of me, I can see and hear plenty."

"I'm the opposite." Glenn cleared his throat, and Jeff looked as he removed his hat and revealed the sigil embroidered in the brim. Jeff snorted, but Glenn narrowed his eyes. "Don't give me lip. I can't be tattooed, I'm a holy man."

"Father Glenn is visible because he's a priest, but it works to his favor," Keith muttered from his place. "There's nothing strange about him talking with the families of the afflicted, or turning up at any home or business, particularly one that young Mister Sheehan has investigated, to inquire, request tithe and snoop." He shot Glenn a sour look from across the room. “You know my role.”

“To keep things from going too far,” Glenn groused back. “Pity you couldn't manage that with that one.” He tossed his head towards Jeff, then pivoted towards the window and emptied his pipe into a flowerbed beneath it. Keith huffed and uncrossed and re-crossed his legs.

“I did what I could.” Keith glanced past Jeff again. “He's keener than he looks.”

Jeff snorted, but set his hands on his hips and raised an eyebrow at Keith. “I know what it is you do. You control the fires when they're set, and you make certain we're there when one is about to happen.”  He turned back towards Aaron where he stood, preparing another pot of tea, and approached him. “And I suppose I don't even need to ask what it is you do.”

“You don't, no.” Aaron's expression was mild, light, and friendly on the surface, but Jeff could keenly feel his observant gaze rove his face as he swaggered across the room to stand in front of him.

“I'd like to see your mark, then.”

Aaron chuckled into his palm. “I'd suppose you would, wouldn't you?” He eased himself a step forward, and moved to unbutton his waistcoat. “Are you certain you'd like me to do it here?”

Jeff smirked easily, but gave no ground. “No more secrets, mate. I don't think my poor heart could take it.”

Aaron chuckled again, but it sounded more like a sigh. “If that is how we must preserve you, then I must.” This got both Glenn and Gallagher staring, but Jeff waited, hands firm on his hips, as Aaron made for the first button.

Then, the door opened, and Johnson entered, clearing his throat. “Gentlemen, I present the Lady Brunswick.” Keith and Gallagher both jumped to a stand and quickly took a knee, side by side. Glenn joined them (though he made no haste about it), and Aaron smoothed his waistcoat and subtly motioned for Jeff to follow suit. Jeff grimaced his disappointment, but he knelt at the end of the line, head low.

Jeff had not been certain what to expect of the Lady Brunswick. Royalty, certainly, but a noblewoman who traveled the world and ran a secret arson ring? Jeff had never met a woman like that. When the others lifted their heads and he did the same, he was instantly certain he never would again.

Glenn turned purple. “Milady, whatever _are_ you wearing?!”

Lady Brunswick, resplendent in a dress that had no hoops, no frills, no petticoats, no chemise, no layers, _no sleeves, and beyond imagination, nothing to cover either her ankles or midriff!_ Merely laughed at Glenn's expression, and the utterly scandalized looks on Keith's and Aaron's faces. (Gallagher looked delighted and amused, and Jeff could only hope she wasn't catching him staring!) “My dear nephew, don't you know this is the fashion in Hawai'i?” The blouse ended below her (generous, Jeff acknowledged) bosoms, the skirt was a woven silk with dyed-in flowers, tied at the hip that slid down the muscle of her (long and shapely, Jeff was ashamed to admit) leg and revealed much of the thigh, and she bore a lovely flower in her raven-black tresses that swayed loose down her back. “They call this a sarong, you see!” She trailed around the room, displaying her elegant form in such a way that Keith had gone from his ruddy complexion to bright red and left Gallagher gawking, then seated herself in a chair at the head of the room. “It's not nearly so hot here as it was there, but my graces, has it been dreadful here of late!” She fanned herself with her hand, then motioned to the other seating in the room with a slender hand. “Off the floor, boys, if you please.”

It was taking all of Jeff's self-control to not stare directly down the Lady Brunswick's chest, if only because good God, even the barmaids were more modest than that! He wrested his fascination under control and sat beside Aaron on one of the sofas, then realized something. He tapped Aaron's thigh to catch his attention, motioned to Glenn, and mouthed, 'nephew?'

Aaron shook his head, but Lady Brunswick spoke from her chair: “That's right, we've someone new in our number.” She crossed one leg over the other and smirked directly at Jeff. “Little Sammy is my nephew – or, in truth, my cousin's son.”

Glenn groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Milady, if you please."

"Yes, yes, pleasantries later." Lady Brunswick tore her eyes from Jeff, but flapped her hand in Aaron's direction. "Mister Chisholm, a spot of tea, if you would."

"Milady." Aaron's smile tightened, but he rose and poured, as Lady Brunswick cast her gaze around the room, looking from eye to eye.

"It's my understanding that you are all to be congratulated for rooting out and eradicating the distribution of opium by one Doctor Charles Yancy. Samuel, if you would, kindly review the operation."

"Milady." The way Glenn said the word told Jeff he would rather call her many other things, but this was one of the few that wouldn't get him thrown in the stockyard. Glenn retrieved a set of reading glasses and small journal from the Napoleon pocket of his coat, put the glasses on and flipped the book open. "Yancy operated in multiple trading towns before arriving in London and setting up shop. We were able to trace him through his contacts. In order, we were able to identify, locate, and confirm with complete confidence: a storage facility that held Doctor Yancy's goods..."

Jeff's heart nearly stopped: _the warehouse._

"... the heads of a trading company with whom Doctor Yancy worked..." Jeff swallowed hard as he remembered the tobacco shop fire. "... Doctor Yancy's personal muscle for those who had become indebted to him." Glenn paused. "We experienced a delay in our operations, as a key member of the team was injured during this phase." Jeff noticed Aaron brushing at his own neck, and faintly recalled the bruises he'd had under his collar, then the knife he'd seen through part of Aaron's waistcoat. This was chased by guilt welling up into his throat. "After this, we were able to entrap Doctor Yancy's financiers, who had knowingly held his ill-gotten gains and laundered money on his behalf, and finally Doctor Yancy's operation itself."

"Excellent." Lady Brunswick clapped her hands, just as Aaron crossed the room and delivered her saucer. She accepted it, but touched his hand as he made to withdraw. "And is your revenge everything you hoped it would be, Mister Chisholm?"

The shock that beset every man in the room made it feel like someone had fired a pistol through the window, with each of them pinning himself to his seat. Only Jeff and Lady Brunswick remained unaffected, Jeff trying not to gawk, and Lady Brunswick setting Aaron with an unflinching stare, serious despite her coy smile. After a moment, Aaron hummed and insistently removed his hand from Lady Brunswick's touch. "No, ma'am. I feel no better." He laced his fingers and studied the creases where they met, lips pursed. "But I feel no worse. It is, if nothing else, a relief to know he will hurt no others as he hurt me."

"But even that is not so. Sammy." Lady Brunswick turned to Glenn again. "Does your little journal have any notes on our lovely little interloper?" She winked at Jeff, even as a mix of offense and bewilderment coiled through his gut. For a second, he felt dizzy, but shook it off when Glenn turned a page and spoke again:

"One of the volunteer firefighters appeared to have spotted key operative A.C. observing the aftermath of an operation. He approached him the next day and made conversation. Nothing of importance was exchanged." Glenn turned another page. "Volunteer firefighter identified as J.S. Operative G.S. investigated. He appears to be curious but clearly has no knowledge of the operation. Operative S.G. made contact and confirmed that he has no knowledge of the operation." Glenn paused, gaze flicking to Jeff where he sat for a moment, then turned the page again. "Operative A.C. reports that J.S. located evidence of his involvement with an operation. Operative A.C. also reports erratic behavior on J.S.'s part. A.C. recommends finding method of forcing J.S. to leave operation area. Suggested bribery." Aaron hung his head at this, and Jeff's jaw hung slack, but Glenn read on. "J.S. appeared at final stage of operation unexpectedly. Target has forced J.S. to consume opium in significant quantities and attempted to use J.S. as hostage, threatening his long-term well-being. J.S. assisted A.C. in completion of operation." He closed his book and recited: "J.S. must be fully debriefed."

"Well, that was boring." Lady Brunswick turned in her seat, hanging her legs over the arm and propping herself up by her cheek as she studied Jeff, her face lit with interest. "The short version is, he stumbled into it and helped you all out of a jam when Yancy's personal involvement with Chisholm threatened to get in the way. So, handsome fellow, how do you like being a firefighter?"

It took Jeff a second to realize she was addressing him. He drew himself up and stuck his chest out a little, trying to appear proud. "It's my life, ma'am. I enjoy saving lives."

"Ah." Lady Brunswick cocked her eyebrow. "And how do you like opium?"

Jeff's stomach nearly turned out onto Lady Brunswick's ornate Turkish rug then and there. "Hate it, ma'am. It's awful." He shivered. "Is it true, that I need more of it now that I've had some?"

The room went silent again, Gallagher pursing his lips, Glenn and Keith averring their eyes. Aaron spoke, softly: "Small doses, until we can successfully wean you off. You had only been given it twice, and with luck, your body will soon forget the need. However, if you continue to crave, then giving you opium will be the only way to quell that need. Otherwise, the... the aftereffects..." He trailed off, face falling, but Glenn spoke:

"The aftereffects of suddenly ceasing opium use, especially after long-term or extreme use, can be damaging to mind and body alike, or even deadly."

"We had to give you some," Gallagher mumbled, and Jeff's jaw fell open again. Glenn swatted Gallagher's arm, but Gallagher threw his hands out. "Someone ought to tell 'im! He got all shaky while me and Mister Johnson were trying to change his bandages! We had to feed him some!"

"I gave him some later, as well," Aaron murmured, and returned to where he had been sitting at Jeff's side. "A few tiny drops, just enough to ensure you wouldn't feel any symptoms while you were recovering."

Jeff's face flushed hot, and he tugged at his collar, then remembered that Johnson, too, had been about to offer him something. "How long will I..."

"At least a little longer. We'll give you less all the time, then stop." Aaron took and clasped his hand. "If you have a bad reaction, we'll give you a little again, but I will do everything in my power to keep you from becoming dependent on it. It is not who you are."

Somehow, that was incredibly reassuring; grounding, even. Aaron was more sincere than he'd ever been, his smile real and solid. Jeff nodded a few times. "Thanks, mate."

Lady Brunswick cleared her throat, and Aaron quickly released Jeff's hands, dusted his palms on his legs, and spun to face her. Jeff, too, looked and found she was smiling serenely as she looked him over. "So, you know the full truth now. What I want to know is if you wish to join our mission."

Keith startled and jumped to his feet. "Milady, I must object. He is my dearest friend's younger brother, and this is a dangerous business! It's bad enough that the elder of the Shaw brothers has even an inkling that such things are happening around us, I cannot, in good conscience--"

"Your objection is noted, Mister Mannsford." Lady Brunswick sat up again and drew her spine straight, suddenly cutting a formidable picture despite her even smile. "But the decision will be Mister Shaw's."

Jeff swallowed, feeling strangely powerful all of a sudden, and then, again, a little dizzy. "If I may ask, milady, what is it that will be asked of me?"

Lady Brunswick's smile turned into a knowing smirk. "Since you and Mister Chisholm seem to get on so well, I'd have you be another point of contact with the Metropolitan Fire Department, arrive early for any operations, and ask you to keep a weather eye on Mister Chisholm's back. And." She paused to sit forward. "I would like him to have a partner for more dangerous undertakings. We nearly lost Mister Chisholm thrice in this operation, and he's too valuable to lose. I imagine having someone dedicated to keeping him alive, especially considering his obvious desire to keep you alive, will be a benefit to our mission."

Aaron's cheeks pinked, but Jeff swallowed twice, his voice watery when he spoke: "You'd ask me to be an arsonist."

"In the bluntest terms, yes." Brunswick rose to a stand. "You need not answer now, however; I want you to consider it carefully." She turned slowly, still with all the dignity of the Queen herself despite her eccentric attire, and looked from eye to eye, from eager Gallagher to livid Keith to stoic Glenn to contemplative Aaron and finally again to Jeff. "You all act under my sigil and my protection. I will do everything in my power to ensure you are all taken care of for the great risk you take, but until someone else chooses to stand against this scourge, we will have to act as pest control, mark me?"

Again, in unison, every man but Jeff answered: "By God and Her Majesty, yes."

"Excellent." Lady Brunswick giggled. "I'll call our debriefing to a close here. Supper will be served in two hours, should you all care to join me. Mister Mannsford, Mister Shaw, this includes you, of course."

Keith's expression tightened again. "Milady." He rose sharply and strode from the room, shoulders back and fists tight at his sides. Gallagher turned to Glenn and quickly whispered something about a duck pond, and Glenn rolled his eyes and muttered acquiescence, then stood and led him out as well. Jeff was uncertain of what to do with himself, until Aaron touched his hand.

"May I assist you in changing your bandages?" His palm fell over the back of Jeff's hand, still wrapped in white gauze. "And... I feel there is more we must talk about."

Jeff sank back against the seat he was in, anticipation rising through him. The day had been a mad ride already, he may as well bolt for the last leg. "I don't disagree. And I suppose I could use fresh bandages." He grinned, and Aaron used his hold on Jeff's hand to lead him to a stand and from the room.

* * *

Aaron was practically a right professional at changing the bandages on Jeff's arms and torso. "I'm used to patching myself up, you see, but I had to learn it on another. Milady insisted I learn a bit of medicine." He let Jeff sit on the bed and crouched at his feet, carefully wrapping fresh gauze around Jeff's tender fingers and the swaths of tiny, angry blisters that ran up his arms. They hurt, now that Jeff was paying attention to them, but he tried to distract himself with mild conversation.

"I wish I'd learned a little. My fingers sometimes get a bit singed on the bucket brigade, or even when holding the hose, just from being so close to a good fire." He looked at the knuckles of the hand Aaron wasn't working on. "Even that cad, Yancy, noticed. I wonder if that's how he made me, or if maybe he was watching you the same as you were watching him."

Aaron stilled a moment, then continued bandaging Jeff's arm. "Aye," he murmured absently, then tucked the bandage firmly in place. "Likely the latter. He would have found some way to harm me." 

Jeff began to speak again, only to recall Lady Brunswick's question, and that heavy word. Revenge. "You, er, said we had more to talk about. I must ask: Yancy.” He hesitated at the bereft look that crossed Aaron's face, but he had to push on: “What... what did he do to you?" 

Aaron's smile died away, his expression suddenly serious, though he continued the work of unraveling the old bandage on Jeff's arm. "Not to me. Not directly."

The pieces fell into place, from what Father Glenn had said to Aaron's bereft expression when Jeff had noticed a certain portrait: "Your Anna?"

"My Anna." Aaron sighed and sat back, keeping Jeff's arm in his grip but looking him in the face. "Yancy enticed her and her finishing school friends, first with sweet tea that made them all dream, and then he offered them bigger dreams. My sister poured her entire inheritance into his pockets. She was only able to stop when one of her friends, who ran out of funds before she had, died. She came to me and begged me to save her from herself, so of course I intervened. And yet, she stopped all at once, and..." Aaron's fingers shook where they touched Jeff's arm. "It ruined her. My poor, dear, sweet sister, she shook with fits and could neither eat nor sleep, she rent her hair. She begged me to give her opium, if it would end her pain, but I refused. She tried to steal from me to get it herself, but I caught her. She even wrote to Yancy, offering to sell her body in exchange for opium, but..." He closed his eyes as if blindness might push the pain out. "I couldn't let her. I couldn't let her suffer that nightmare a second longer. She begged me to give it to her, but I didn't know either, how damaging it was, so I refused, again and again, and so she begged me to kill her. She... she eventually dissolved." Aaron heaved a sigh. "She's in hospital now. She may be there for the remainder of her life."

"Damn," Jeff said aloud without meaning to. "I... I'm sorry, I had no idea--"

"Of course you hadn't, no. It's a difficult thing to live, to speak of. Some days, I hardly wish to think of it, but I must. After all, I fear such a thing might be your fate, too, if I don't care for you." Aaron's touch on his arm became solid again, and he gently rubbed his shoulder, then returned to the work of replacing his bandages. "When I learned we were trailing Yancy, I became eager. I may have made mistakes. That, or I was not so careful as I thought I had been. Either way, I am glad I met you. You kept me alive." He finished bandaging Jeff's arm again, then stood and touched his forehead. “How are you feeling?”

Jeff considered briefly, then shrugged his shoulders. “A touch dizzy. Is that a symptom?”

“It is.” Aaron pursed his lips, then withdrew his hand and wiped it on his waistcoat. “Are you nauseous, or shaky?” Jeff shook his head 'no,' and Aaron rubbed his chin as he thought. “Let me know when you begin to feel shakes or shivers. I'll prepare you some medicine.” Jeff knew what that medicine meant, loathe of the word all over again, but Aaron smoothed his hair and gently tipped his head back to make him meet his eyes. “Were you still curious about my mark?”

“I was, yes.” Jeff sat forward on the bed, flexing his hands. Aaron took a few steps back, then unbuttoned his waistcoat, followed by his shirt. Jeff watched, intrigued, as Aaron slid his shirt off and revealed the black sigil of the flower and snake over his heart, but with more twisted lines – no, vines, dotted with almond-shaped leaves, spreading out from the center of his tattoo to weave across his chest and belly and up over his shoulders. Aaron folded his shirt and set it behind him, then spread his arms to expose the full extent of his mark.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154453314@N07/37001551995/in/dateposted-public/)

“I've added a leaf for each corpse I've left in my wake. Tell me, Geoffrey, how many must I add now?” A ghost of his eerie persona peered through the hollow whites in his eyes, but Jeff knew it was facade now.

“I think just the one will be fine. The important one.” He flicked gently across one of the vines nearest Aaron's heart. “There were a few others we had to turn over to the police, but you dealt with Yancy and saved my arse. You did well.” He laid his hand flat over Aaron's breastbone. “Besides, I wouldn't want you blacking out that lovely red heart like that.” He looked up at Aaron, whose eyes had gone wide and bright, and despite all the lush jungles of India, he'd never seen anything so beautiful and green in his life. “You're a good man. You oughtn't bother pretending you're not.”

“Jeff, you must understand.” Aaron took his shirt up and began to slide it back on. “I kill incidentally, for a cause, but I am still a sinner.” He put on a weary smile. “I'm somewhat like a cleaning rag; what I do is important, but nobody truly wishes to touch me.”

“That doesn't matter. Not to me, anyway. You are good,” Jeff repeated, fixing Aaron with an imploring stare as he rose to stand before him. “You may have a dirty job, but you've got your charms and wits, and you're doing something valuable.” Jeff pursed his lips, then bowed his head. “Mark me.”

“Jeff?”

“I want to be marked, like you are. I want it all over my skin, the mark that I am like you.” Jeff traced a ring around his neck. “Here, my back, my chest, wherever the Lady wants it. I want to join you in cleaning up this city.” He smirked rakishly, but edged a step in towards Aaron. “I'm a bit like a cleaning rag, just the same as you. Filthy, unwanted, but here with something to do with myself nevertheless.”

Aaron took Jeff in, then reached up and pushed his hair back from his face. “I want you. You're a dear, Geoffrey. If Lady Brunswick has changed her mind, I'll mark you myself. You'll help me?”

“I will.” Jeff bowed his head towards Aaron, and caught his hands up with Aaron's, too nearly like a man escorting a woman off of a ballroom floor but damn if he didn't care about impropriety when it was Aaron. “You'll keep me?”

“I will. You'll regret it.” Aaron leaned his head against his shoulder and smiled into his neck. “I'm very dangerous, you see.”

Jeff eased back to look into Aaron's eyes again. “Mister Chisholm, you're looking at a right savage, no different from you.” He tightened their embrace and laughed, Aaron laughed, and the sound was as good as wedding bells in Jeff's ears.

The thought of his new future stoked the fire in his soul.

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

Autumn in London was crisp and cool, and Jeff had gained an appreciation for wearing his best tweed jacket on those certain days when he wanted most to impress. Even lovely Julianna couldn't keep a compliment in as he passed through her shop. 

"You look dapper, Mr. Shaw. Off to see your friend today?"

"You read me well, Mrs. Shaw." Jeff winked, and Julianna laughed, then turned to the blossoms she had at hand.

"Goodness, now, if only you reserved a little of that genuine charm for other women, there would be another Mrs. Shaw for me to talk to!" Jeff snorted and rolled his eyes, but smiled through it.

"Ah, you know, I save the charm for where it's important. The ladies serving pints can't tell the difference, so I don't often bother." He winked at Julianna as she turned back to him, little scissors at the ready.

"And yet, no matter your health, you've always a coy smile for Mister Chisholm. I'd say the serving ladies should be right jealous, they should." Julianna laughed to herself as she snipped a few buds from the stems. "And how are you feeling?"

This subdued Jeff a touch, and he cleared his throat and adjusted his collar. "Well enough. Eager to see Aaron, though."

"Ah, of course, of course, but a moment more!" Julianna flashed him another smile, then handed him a green and white carnation bouquet, then pinned a little red carnation to his lapel. "A proper gentleman, wearing a boutonniere and everything."

Jeff smiled to himself and for her. "Julie, you're too kind. Won't you warn David I may be a bit late getting home tonight? Fingers crossed, nothing will burn in the witching hour, but in the meantime, I've plans."

Julie put her hands on her hips. "You and your plans, Geoffrey. You know David worries."

"Aye, miss, but I'm a man of my own making." Jeff straightened his jacket and winked at her. "And I've _made_ plans. So, I'll keep them and see you and David tonight, with any luck."

"With luck. Fare well 'til then." Julianna pouted her disappointment as Jeff, head held high, exited her shop with the bouquet in hand and his boutonniere in place. He was content to ignore the whispers and stares of her other customers.

Where he was going, there would be none of that.

The leaves that blew through the street were crisp and brown now, and the air, now mercifully light with the absence of the oppressive summer swelter, smelled of the apples at the market and the oncoming afternoon rain shower. Jeff could only wonder what scent would waft from Aaron's door when he threw it wide. Sure enough, he arrived to the scent of cinnamon and clove and the faintest hint of women's perfume, and Aaron, impeccably dressed in his morning coat and a pinstriped emerald green vest, smiling falsely for a small crowd of young ladies gathering up bags of tea and potpourri. His glasses caught the mid-morning light just so as he looked to Jeff, and the quality of his smile changed just enough that Jeff could tell.

"Thank you for your patronage, ladies, but I'm afraid I must see to my flower delivery." The girls moaned and sighed as Aaron gently ushered them out past Jeff, and the moment they were gone, he put up a "back momentarily" sign and pivoted around to him. "Carnations? They're lovely."

"And a boutonniere to match, eh?" Jeff adjusted his jacket again, making certain the carnation blazed in the light. Aaron's smile was one of approval, and he gave Jeff's cheek a soft, affectionate touch.

"Such an exquisite gentleman you are. Come, I'll take these." He accepted the bouquet from Jeff's hand and moved to find a vase, looking back for a moment as he did. "Tea?"

"Most certainly." Jeff sauntered to the counter as Aaron dipped into the kitchen, soon placing the flowers in the vase and then turning to the kettles.

He did not look at Jeff when he asked: "Sugar?"

Jeff swallowed, but kept his focus on the space where Aaron's eyes would be if he could bear to look at him. "A touch, yes."

Though it had been a few months since Jeff had been drugged, he still hadn't completely weaned off of the opium. Some days were worse than others; he'd wake in cold sweats, shaking and shivering but too hot at the same time. He'd tried to bear through them, but Aaron begged him not to force the issue with his own physiology and to just take the medicine he needed. He hated the medicine, too:. He'd woken shaking and with a headache that could throw the Devil himself into a tantrum on the morning of David's wedding, but taking the opium left him loopy and dozy, sitting in a daze in the front pew of the church as his brother took his vows. The thought that he could hardly recall that momentous day, as well as the other rare afternoons where he was too sick to think, only fanned the flame in his heart that kept his grudge against the stuff burning.

"It's but a tiny shake in the hands, though." Jeff held his hands out and looked at his palms. "Perhaps I could--"

"I'm afraid," Aaron interrupted, as he set the cup, already swirling with sugar (and otherwise) and pale with cream, before Jeff, "that you should trust your first instinct with this. I added only a tiny touch, though."

Jeff looked guiltily down into the tea still swirling with the current of the spoon, then heaved a sigh and made himself smile. "You're as cautious as a mother duck, you are. I'm grateful. Thank you." He took his cup up as Aaron poured for himself. The cinnamon and anise Aaron had brewed in his cup smelled like heaven, like home, and he could forget he was dosing himself with opium just to keep his head on straight.

Aaron had made the last few months easier, if nothing else. He'd been accommodating and kind at every turn. He'd willingly letting Jeff spend nights on his bed when Jeff was overcome with shivers, watching over him as he tossed and turned and tried to bite his own tongue off. Work, too, was nerve-wracking now, with Jeff on pins and needles every time he came close to a fire, the burn scars on his arms tingling, but he knew Aaron followed the fire bells too and stood by in case Jeff desperately needed a rescue, if not someone to turn to when it was all over to ensure him he'd lived. Aaron was like the other half of him he'd burnt away in the fire, and he really only felt whole standing at his side.

Aaron motioned for Jeff to follow him as he lifted his tea saucer. "I had hoped we might take tea downstairs, if you would."

"Downstairs?" Jeff grabbed his tea and tagged at Aaron's heels as he led Jeff through the kitchen and into a door. Jeff knew that Aaron's upstairs room was reserved for high tea service, but the downstairs was his living space and private work space. Aaron lit the lanterns as he passed them, lighting up the overfilled desk and all the papers laid out in neat piles on trunks and tables, as well as the satchels of curious powders that Aaron had explained to Jeff once but of which, for the life of him, Jeff could not recall the details. All he knew was that Aaron would find blueprints at City Hall and the like and research how a building was constructed before his work began, and the powders, mixed in precarious, incredibly specific quantities and baked under a hot flame, acted as his propellant. The room carried the faint scent of the propellant, the same as Aaron wore it on his skin, but Jeff had come to find the smell familiar and comforting; earthy and natural, even. This time, however, Aaron lit the lamp over his desk and set his tea on a shelf above it.

"Mark me, but Father Glenn's kept dear Gallagher busy." He smiled wryly, and Jeff laughed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"By God and Her Majesty, yes, it would seem so."

So this was business. All had been quiet for some time, with nothing but lone opium pushers popping up in rumor and being quietly removed by some of the Lady's other discreet sources, but when Aaron had asked him to come today, he'd mentioned in his offhand way that there might be something interesting happening. Jeff had received his mark -- hidden under the fall of his hair on the back of his neck, just like he'd asked for -- but he'd had scant chances to use it. He'd passed by Glenn and Gallagher and been friendly to each – more so to Gallagher, of course, but as cordial as one could be with Glenn – and they'd both treated him with natural nonchalance (with the exception of Glenn, who made a point of pinching his tattoo when shooing him off once, _the bloody arsehole_ ). Now, though, it seemed they'd simply neglected to tell him what they knew, or they were just too good at keeping things mum.

Bastards, keeping the fun to themselves. He would have loved to watch Gallagher sneak aboard, based on the blueprint Aaron had laid out, a merchant vessel.

"It seems the good ship Ulysses, under the command of Captain Nigel Jennifers, has docked in London after a trip to China and India, and has returned bearing a very full packet.” Aaron rubbed his chin curiously, then slid a hand around Jeff's waist. “And it doesn't all smell of tea. It's very possible that Jennifers may be running or somehow involved in some sort of loose ring, possibly even connected to other, larger and more dangerous dealers.”

“Cor blimey, is that so?” Jeff leaned over the diagram of the ship, already feeling a little excited. “My goodness, how absolutely scandalous.”

“Oh, come now.” Aaron gave Jeff a coy wink. “How will we know unless we see it for ourselves?”

“Right you are.” Jeff moved a few of Aaron's papers around. “How long will he be docked for?”

“Supposedly, a few months for repairs, so we've time to spare.”

“And where is she docked?”

“Bulls-head Wharf, at Rotherhithe.” Aaron pulled the page Jeff had been looking for indicating the shipyard the vessel was moored in, and Jeff promptly stuffed it into his vest pocket.

“Well, then, my dear Mister Chisholm, what say we stroll ourselves across London this afternoon and have a look at her? I find that those lovely white sails always brighten my afternoons, like a good fire brightens the night.” He grinned like a wolf who'd cornered a pig, and Aaron laughed.

“Graces, Mister Shaw, I'm beginning to think you enjoy this more than I do.”

“No, not at all.” Jeff eased back into a natural smile as he stepped back from the desk and slid his hand down Aaron's arm. “I enjoy, above all, to see you satisfied. It keeps the fire hot in my soul.” He lifted Aaron's hand to his lips for a chaste kiss over his warm knuckles, sharing the unspoken for a tender moment.

They shared enough sins, and defied plenty of laws in doing it. What was one more?

As Aaron used Jeff's hold on him to guide him forward, towards the room and bed they shared when they could, towards their way forward, Jeff knew precisely where he was going. The work of a volunteer firefighter would never be done, but Jeff no longer cared about the snide comments because now, he worked unseen, and the one person who did see him at work gazed on him with adoration: Aaron’s smile was brighter than any flame. No matter where this new path led him, he was, if nothing else, happy to no longer be alone.


End file.
